,- 


SHE    STAHTK1)     IT,    AND    WITH     A    QTICK     FLl\<ilN<:     OF    I 
TUKNKD    TO    LOOK    Ol'T    OF    THK    WINDOW 


I  See  p.  31 
VF.IL    ASIDE 


FENNEL  AND    RUE 


BY 
W.    D.     HOWELLS 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 
CHARLOTTE  HARDING 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


NOVELS  BY 
WILLIAM    DEAN   HOWELLS 

A  HAZARD  OP  NEW  FORTUNES $ 

A  PAIR  OF  PATIENT  LOVERS     ....     net 
A  PARTING  AND  A  MEETING.    Illustrated     .     . 

AN  IMPERATIVE  DUTY 

A  TRAVELLER  FROM  ALTRURIA 

ANNIE  KILBURN 

APRIL  HOPES 

AN  OPEN-EYED  CONSPIRACY 

BETWEEN  THE  DARK  AND  DAYLIGHT     . 

FENNEL  AND  RUE.     Illustrated 

LETTERS  HOME        

Miss  BELLARD'S  INSPIRATION        

QUESTIONABLE  SHAPES.     Illustrated       .     .     . 

RAGGED  LADY.     Illustrated 

THE  COAST  OF  BOHEMIA.     Illustrated     . 
THE  DAY  OF  THEIR  WEDDING.    Illustrated     . 

THE  KENTONS     ...     

THE  LANDLORD  AT  LION'S  HEAD.     Illustrated 

THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY 

THE  SHADOW  OF  A  DREAM       

THE  SON  OF  ROYAL  LANGBRITH        .... 

THE  STORY  OF  A  PLAY 

THE  WORLD  OF  CHANCE 


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THEIR  SILVER  WEDDING  JOURNEY.    Illustrated 

TWQ  Volume  Edition  (.     .....     .     .     .     5.00 

THROUGH  WE  EYE  .p*  it.  (^KEE>L&    ....     1.50 

HARPER  &   BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,   N.  Y. 


Copyright,  1908,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  resewcti* 

Published  March,  1908. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

USHE  STARTED  UP,  AND  WITH  A  QUICK  FLINGING  OF  HER 

VEIL  ASIDE  TURNED  TO   LOOK  OUT  OF  THE   WINDOW"  Frontitpiect 

"'ARMIGER  ASKED  ME  IF  i  HAD  EVER  HEARD  ANYTHING 

MORE  FROM  THAT  GIRL'" Facing  p.  20 

'"l  AM  AFRAID  I  STARTLED  YOU.  I  WAS  JUST  COMING 

FOR  A  BOOK  TO  READ  MYSELF  TO  SLEEP  WITH'"  .  "  70 

"VERRIAN  ROSE  AWKWARDLY  AND  STOOD  A  LONG  MOMENT 

BEFORE    HIS    CHAIR"  "         100 


393804 


FENNEL    AND    RUE 


FENNEL    AND    RUE 


THE  success  of  Verrian  did  not  come  early,  and  it 
did  not  come  easily.  He  had  been  trying  a  long  time 
to  get  his  work  into  the  best  magazines,  and  when  he 
had  won  the  favor  of  the  editors,  whose  interest  he  had 
perhaps  had  from  the  beginning,  it  might  be  said  that 
they  began  to  accept  his  work  from  their  consciences, 
because  in  its  way  it  was  so  good  that  they  could  not 
justly  refuse  it,  The  particular  editor  who  took  Ver- 
rian's  serial,  after  it  had  come  back  to  the  author  from 
the  editors  of  the  other  leading  periodicals,  was  in  fact 
moved  mainly  by  the  belief  that  the  story  would  please 
the  better  sort  of  his  readers.  These,  if  they  were  not 
so  numerous  as  the  worse,  he  felt  had  now  and  then  the 
right  to  have  their  pleasure  studied. 

It  was  a  serious  story,  and  it  was  somewhat  bitter, 
as  Yerrian  himself  was,  after  his  struggle  to  reach  the 
public  with  work  which  he  knew  merited  recognition. 
But  the  world  which  does  not  like  people  to  take  them 
selves  too  seriously  also  likes  them  to  take  themselves 
seriously,  and  the  bitterness  in  Verrian's  story  proved 
agreeable  to  a  number  of  readers  unexpectedly  great. 
It  intimated  a  romantic  personality  in  the  author,  and 
the  world  still  likes  to  imagine  romantic  things  of  au 
thors.  It  likes  especially  to  imagine  them  of  novelists, 
now  that  there  are  no  longer  poets ;  and  when  it  began 

1 


AND     EUE 


to  like  Verrian's  serial,  it  began  to  write  him  all  sorts 
of  letters,  directly,  in  care  of  the  editor,  and  indirectly 
to  the  editor,  whom  they  asked  about  Verrian  more 
than  about  his  story. 

It  was  a  man's  story  rather  than  a  woman's  story,  as 
these  may  be  distinguished;  but  quite  for  that  reason 
women  seemed  peculiarly  taken  -with  it.  Perhaps  the 
women  had  more  leisure  or  more  courage  to  write  to  the 
author  and  the  editor;  at  any  rate,  most  of  the  letters 
were  from  women;  some  of  the  letters  were  silly  and 
fatuous  enough,  but  others  were  of  an  intelligence  which 
was  none  the  less  penetrating  for  being  emotional  rather 
than  critical.  These  maids  or  matrons,  whoever  or 
whichever  they  were,  knew  wonderfully  well  what  the 
author  would  be  at,  and  their  interest  in  his  story  im 
plied  a  constant  if  not  a  single  devotion.  Now  and 
then  Verrian  was  tempted  to  answer  one  of  them,  and 
under  favor  of  his  mother,  who  had  been  his  confidant 
at  every  point  of  his  literary  career,  he  yielded  to  the 
temptation;  but  one  day  there  came  a  letter  asking  an 
answer,  which  neither  he  nor  his  mother  felt  competent 
to  deal  with.  They  both  perceived  that  they  must 
refer  it  to  the  editor  of  the  magazine,  and  it  seemed  to 
them  so  important  that  they  decided  Verrian  must  go 
with  it  in  person  to  the  editor.  Then  he  must  be  so 
far  ruled  by  him,  if  necessary,  as  to  give  him  the  letter 
and  put  himself,  as  the  author,  beyond  an  appeal 
which  he  found  peculiarly  poignant. 

The  letter,  which  had  overcome  the  tacit  misgiv 
ings  of  his  mother  as  they  read  it  and  read  it  again  to 
gether,  was  from  a  girl  who  had  perhaps  no  need  to 
confess  herself  young,  or  to  own  her  inexperience  of 
the  world  where  stories  were  written  and  printed.  She 
excused  herself  with  a  delicacy  which  Verrian's  corre 
spondents  by  no  means  always  showed  for  intruding 

2 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

upon  him,  and  then  pleaded  the  power  his  story  had 
over  her  as  the  only  shadow  of  right  she  had  in  ad 
dressing  him.  Its  fascination,  she  said,  had  begun 
with  the  first  numher,  the  first  chapter,  almost  the  first 
paragraph.  It  was  not  for  the  plot  that  she  cared; 
she  had  read  too  many  stories  to  care  for  the  plot;  it 
was  the  problem  involved.  It  was  one  which  she  had 
so  often  pondered  in  her  own  mind  that  she  felt,  in  a 
way  she  hoped  he  would  not  think  conceited,  almost  as 
if  the  story  was  written  for  her.  She  had  never  been 
able  to  solve  the  problem;  how  he  would  solve  it  she 
did  not  see  how  she  could  wait  to  know;  and  here  she 
made  him  a  confidence  without  which,  she  said,  she 
should  not  have  the  courage  to  go  on.  She  was  an 
invalid,  and  her  doctor  had  told  her  that,  though  she 
might  live  for  months,  there  were  chances  that  she 
might  die  at  any  moment  suddenly.  He  would  think  it 
strange,  and  it  was  strange  that  she  should  tell  him  this, 
and  stranger  still  that  she  should  dare  to  ask  him  what 
she  was  going  to  ask.  The  story  had  yet  four  months 
to  run,  and  she  had  begun  to  have  a  morbid  foreboding 
that  she  should  not  live  to  read  it  in  the  ordinary  course. 
She  was  so  ignorant  about  writers  that  she  did  not  know 
whether  such  a  thing  was  ever  done,  or  could  be  done ; 
but  if  he  could  tell  her  how  the  story  was  to  come  out 
he  would  be  doing  more  for  her  than  anything  else 
that  could  be  done  for  her  on  earth.  She  had  read  that 
sometimes  authors  began  to  print  their  serial  stories 
before  they  had  written  them  to  the  end,  and  he  might 
not  be  sure  of  the  end  himself;  but  if  he  had  finished 
this  story  of  his,  and  could  let  her  see  the  last  pages 
in  print,  she  would  owe  him  the  gratitude  she  could 
never  express. 

The  letter  was  written  in  an  educated  hand,  and  there 
were  no  foibles  of  form  or  excesses  of  fashion  in  the 
'  3 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

stationery  to  mar  the  character  of  sincerity  the  simple 
wording  conveyed.  The  postal  address,  with  the  date, 
was  fully  given,  and  the  name  signed  at  the  end  was 
evidently  genuine. 

Verrian  himself  had  no  question  of  the  genuineness 
of  the  letter  in  any  respect;  his  mother,  after  her  first 
misgivings,  which  were  perhaps  sensations,  thought  as 
he  did  about  it.  She  said  the  story  dealt  so  profoundly 
with  the  deepest  things  that  it  was  no  wonder  a  person, 
standing  like  that  girl  between  life  and  death,  should 
wish  to  know  how  the  author  solved  its  problem.  Then 
she  read  the  letter  carefully  over  again,  and  again 
Verrian  read  it,  with  an  effect  not  different  from  that 
which  its  first  perusal  had  made  with  him.  His  faith 
in  his  work  was  so  great,  so  entire,  that  the  notion  of 
any  other  feeling  about  it  was  not  admissible. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  with  a  sigh  of  satisfaction, 
"  I  must  show  the  letter  to  Armiger  at  once." 

"  Of  course,"  his  mother  replied.  "  He  is  the  editor, 
and  you  must  not  do  anything  without  his  approval." 

The  faith  in  the  writer  of  the  letter,  which  was  pri 
mary  with  him,  was  secondary  with  her,  but  perhaps 
for  that  reason  she  was  all  the  more  firmly  grounded 
in  it 


II 


THERE  was  nothing  to  cloud  the  editor's  judgment, 
when  Verrian  came  to  him,  except  the  fact  that  he  was 
a  poet  as  well  as  an  editor.  He  read  in  a  silence  as 
great  as  the  author's  the  letter  which  Verrian  sub 
mitted.  Then  he  remained  pondering  it  for  as  long  a 
space  before  he  said,  "  That  is  very  touching." 

Verrian  jumped  to  his  question.  "  Do  you  mean  that 
we  ought  to  send  her  the  proofs  of  the  story  ?" 

"  No,"  the  editor  faltered,  but  even  in  this  decision 
he  did  not  deny  the  author  his  sympathy.  "  You've 
touched  bottom  in  that  story,  Verrian.  You  may  go 
higher,  but  you  can  never  go  deeper." 

Verrian  flushed  a  little.    "  Oh,  thank  you !" 

"  I'm  not  surprised  the  girl  wants  to  know  how  you 
manage  your  problem  —  such  a  girl,  standing  in  the 
shadow  of  the  other  world,  which  is  always  eclipsing 
this,  and  seeing  how  you've  caught  its  awful  outline." 

Verrian  made  a  grateful  murmur  at  the  praise. 
"  That  is  what  my  mother  felt.  Then  you  have  no 
doubt  of  the  good  faith —  " 

"  No,"  the  editor  returned,  with  the  same  quantity, 
if  not  the  same  quality,  of  reluctance  as  before.  "  You 
see,  it  would  be  too  daring." 

"  Then  why  not  let  her  have  the  proofs?" 

"  The  thing  is  so  unprecedented — " 

"  Our  doing  it  needn't  form  a  precedent." 

"  No." 

"  And  if  you've  no  doubt  of  its  being  a  true  case — " 

5 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

"  We  must  prove  that  it  is,  or,  rather,  we  must  make 
her  prove  it.  I  quite  feel  with  you  about  it.  If  I  were 
to  act  upon  my  own  impulse,  my  own  convictions,  I 
should  send  her  the  rest  of  the  story  and  take  the 
chances.  But  she  may  be  an  enterprising  journalist 
in  disguise — it's  astonishing  what  women  will  do  when 
they  take  to  newspaper  work — and  we  have  no  right 
to  risk  anything,  for  the  magazine's  sake,  if  not  yours 
and  mine.  Will  you  leave  this  letter  with  me  ?" 

"  I  expected  to  leave  the  whole  affair  in  your  hands. 
Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  you  propose  to  do  ?  Of 
course,  it  won't  be  anything — abrupt — 

"  Oh  no ;  and  I  don't  mind  telling  you  what  has  oc 
curred  to  me.  If  this  is  a  true  case,  as  you  say,  and 
I've  no  question  but  it  is,  the  writer  will  be  on  con 
fidential  terms  with  her  pastor  as  well  as  her  doctor; 
and  I  propose  asking  her  to  get  him  to  certify,  in  any 
sort  of  general  terms,  to  her  identity.  I  will  treat  the 
matter  delicately —  Or,  if  you  prefer  to  write  to  her 
yourself — " 

"  Oh  no,  it's  much  better  for  you  to  do  it ;  you  can 
do  it  authoritatively." 

"  Yes,  and  if  she  isn't  the  real  thing,  but  merely 
a  woman  journalist  trying  to  work  us  for  a  '  story '  in 
her  Sunday  edition,  we  shall  hear  no  more  from  her." 

"  I  don't  see  anything  to  object  to  in  your  plan," 
Verrian  said,  upon  reflection.  "  She  certainly  can't 
complain  of  our  being  cautious." 

"  No,  and  she  won't.  I  shall  have  to  refer  the  matter 
to  the  house — 

"  Oh,  will  you?" 

"  Why,  certainly !  I  couldn't  take  a  step  like  that 
without  the  approval  of  the  house." 

"  No,"  Verrian  assented,  and  he  made  a  note  of  the 
writer's  address  from  the  letter.  Then,  after  a  moment 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

spent  in  looking  hard  at  the  letter,  he  gave  it  back  to  the 
editor  and  went  abruptly  away. 

He  had  proof,  the  next  morning,  that  the  editor  had 
acted  promptly,  at  least  so  far  as  regarded  the  house. 
The  house  had  approved  his  plan,  if  one  could  trust  the 
romantic  paragraph  which  Verrian  found  in  his  paper 
at  breakfast,  exploiting  the  fact  concerned  as  one  of  the 
interesting  evidences  of  the  hold  his  serial  had  got  with 
the  magazine  readers.  He  recognized  in  the  paragraph 
the  touch  of  the  good  fellow  who  prepared  the  weekly 
bulletins  of  the  house,  and  offered  the  press  literary 
intelligence  in  a  form  ready  for  immediate  use.  The 
case  was  fairly  stated,  but  the  privacy  of  the  author's 
correspondent  was  perfectly  guarded;  it  was  not  even 
made  known  that  she  was  a  woman.  Yet  Verrian  felt, 
in  reading  the  paragraph,  a  shock  of  guilty  dismay,  as 
if  he  had  betrayed  a  confidence  reposed  in  him,  and 
he  handed  the  paper  across  the  table  to  his  mother  with 
rather  a  sick  look. 

After  his  return  from  the  magazine  office  the  day  be 
fore,  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of  talk  between  them 
about  that  girl.  Mrs.  Yerrian  had  agreed  with  him 
that  no  more  interesting  event  could  have  happened  to 
an  author,  but  she  had  tried  to  keep  him  from  taking 
it  too  personally,  and  from  making  himself  mischievous 
illusions  from  it.  She  had  since  slept  upon  her  anxie 
ties,  with  the  effect  of  finding  them  more  vivid  at 
waking,  and  she  had  been  casting  about  for  an  opening 
to  penetrate  him  with  them,  when  fortune  put  this 
paragraph  in  her  way. 

"  Isn't  it  disgusting  ?"  he  asked.  "  I  don't  see  how 
Armiger  could  let  them  do  it.  I  hope  to  heaven  she'll 
never  see  it!" 

His  mother  looked  up  from  the  paragraph  and  asked, 
"Why?" 

7 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  Why  ?    What  would  she  think  of  me  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.  She  might  have  expected  something 
of  the  kind." 

"  How  expect  something  of  the  kind  ?  Am  I  one  of 
the  self-advertisers  ?" 

"  Well,  she  must  have  realized  that  she  was  doing 
rather  a  bold  thing." 

"Bold?" 

"  Venturesome,"  Mrs.  Verrian  compromised  to  the 
kindling  anger  in  her  son's  eyes. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,  mother.  I  thought  you 
agreed  with  me  about  the  writer  of  that  letter — her 
sincerity,  simplicity." 

"  Sincerity,  yes.  But  simplicity —  Philip,  a  thor 
oughly  single-minded  girl  never  wrote  that  letter.  You 
can't  feel  such  a  thing  as  I  do.  A  man  couldn't.  You 
can  paint  the  character  of  women,  and  you  do  it  won 
derfully — but,  after  all,  you  can't  know  them  as  a 
woman  does." 

"  You  talk,"  he  answered,  a  little  sulkily,  "  as  if 
you  knew  some  harm  of  the  girl." 

"  No,  my  son,  I  know  nothing  about  her,  except  that 
she  is  not  single-minded,  and  there  is  no  harm  in  not 
being  single  -  minded.  A  great  many  single  -  minded 
women  are  fools,  and  some  double-minded  women  are 
good." 

"  Well,  single-minded  or  double-minded,  if  she  is 
what  she  says  she  is,  what  motive  on  earth  could  she 
have  in  writing  to  me  except  the  motive  she  gives  ?  You 
don't  deny  that  she  tells  the  truth  about  herself  ?" 

"  Don't  I  say  that  she  is  sincere  ?  But  a  girl  doesn't 
always  know  her  own  motives,  or  all  of  them.  She 
may  have  written  to  you  because  she  would  like  to 
begin  a  correspondence  with  an  author.  Or  she  may 
have  done  it  out  of  the  love  of  excitement.  Or  for 

8 


FENNEL     AND     HUE 

the  sake  of  distraction,  to  get  away  from  herself  and 
her  gloomy  forebodings." 

"  And  should  you  blame  her  for  that  ?" 

"  No,  I  shouldn't.  I  should  pity  her  for  it.  But,  all 
the  same,  I  shouldn't  want  you  to  be  taken  in  by  her." 

"  You  think,  then,  she  doesn't  care  anything  about 
the  story?" 

"  I  think,  very  probably,  she  cares  a  great  deal  about 
it.  She  is  a  serious  person,  intellectually  at  least,  and 
it  is  a  serious  story.  No  wonder  she  would  like  to 
know,  at  first  hand,  something  about  the  man  who 
wrote  it." 

This  flattered  Verrian,  but  he  would  not  allow  its 
reasonableness.  He  took  a  gulp  of  coffee  before  saying, 
uncandidly,  "  I  can't  make  out  what  you're  driving  at, 
mother.  But,  fortunately,  there's  no  hurry  about  your 
meaning.  The  thing's  in  the  only  shape  we  could  pos 
sibly  give  it,  and  I  am  satisfied  to  leave  it  in  Armiger's 
hands.  I'm  certain  he  will  deal  wisely  with  it — and 
kindly." 

"  Yes,  I'm  sure  he'll  deal  kindly.  I  should  be  very 
unhappy  if  he  didn't.  He  could  easily  deal  more  wise 
ly,  though,  than  she  has." 

Verrian  chose  not  to  follow  his  mother  in  this.  "  All 
is,"  he  said,  with  finality,  "  I  hope  she'll  never  see  that 
loathsome  paragraph." 

"  Oh,  very  likely  she  won't,"  his  mother  consoled  him. 


Ill 


ONLY  four  days  after  he  had  seen  Armiger,  Verrian 
received  an  envelope  covering  a  brief  note  to  himself 
from  the  editor,  a  copy  of  the  letter  he  had  written  to 
Verrian's  unknown  correspondent,  and  her  answer  in 
the  original.  Verrian  was  alone  when  the  postman 
brought  him  this  envelope,  and  he  could  indulge  a  cer 
tain  passion  for  method  by  which  he  read  its  contents 
in  the  order  named;  if  his  mother  had  been  by,  she 
would  have  made  him  read  the  girl's  reply  first  of  all. 
Armiger  wrote : 

"  MY  DEAR  VERRIAN, — I  enclose  two  exhibits  which 
will  possess  you  of  all  the  facts  in  the  case  of  the  young 
lady  who  feared  she  might  die  before  she  read  the  end 
of  your  story,  but  who,  you  will  be  glad  to  find,  is  like 
ly  to  live  through  the  year.  As  the  story  ends  in  our 
October  number,  she  need  not  be  supplied  with  advance 
sheets.  I  am  sorry  the  house  hurried  out  a  paragraph 
concerning  the  matter,  but  it  will  not  be  followed  by  an 
other.  Perhaps  you  will  feel,  as  I  do,  that  the  incident 
is  closed.  I  have  not  replied  to  the  writer,  and  you 
need  not  return  her  letter.  .Yours  ever, 

"  M.  ARMIGER." 

The  editor's  letter  to  the  young  lady  read : 

"  DEAR  MADAM, — Mr.  P.  S.  Verrian  has  handed  me 
your  letter  of  the  4th,  and  I  need  not  tell  you  that  it  has 
interested  us  both. 

10 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

"  I  am  almost  as  much  gratified  as  he  by  the  testi 
mony  your  request  bears  to  the  importance  of  his  work, 
and  if  I  could  have  acted  upon  my  instant  feeling  I 
should  have  had  no  hesitation  in  granting  it,  though  it 
is  so  very  unusual  as  to  be,  in  my  experience  as  an 
editor,  unprecedented.  I  am  sure  that  you  would  not 
have  made  it  so  frankly  if  you  had  not  been  prepared 
to  guard  in  return  any  confidence  placed  in  you;  but 
you  will  realize  that  as  you  are  quite  unknown  to  us, 
we  should  not  be  justified  in  taking  a  step  so  unusual 
as  you  propose  without  having  some  guarantee  besides 
that  which  Mr.  Verrian  and  I  both  feel  from  the  charac 
ter  of  your  letter.  Simply,  then,  for  purposes  of 
identification,  as  the  phrase  is,  I  must  beg  you  to  ask 
the  pastor  of  your  church,  or,  better  still,  your  family 
physician,  to  write  you  a  line  saying  that  he  knows  you, 
as  a  sort  of  letter  of  introduction  to  me.  Then  I  will 
send  you  the  advance  proofs  of  Mr.  Verrian's  story. 
You  may  like  to  address  me  personally  in  the  care  of 
the  magazine,  and  not  as  the  editor. 

"  Yours  very  respectfully, 

"  M.  AEMIGEB." 

The  editor's  letter  was  dated  the  6th  of  the  month; 
the  answer,  dated  the  8th,  betrayed  the  anxious  haste  of 
the  writer  in  replying,  and  it  was  not  her  fault  if  what 
she  wrote  came  to  Verrian  when  he  was  no  longer  able  to 
do  justice  to  her  confession.  Under  the  address  given 
in  her  first  letter  she  now  began,  in  a  hand  into  which 
a  kindlier  eye  might  have  read  a  pathetic  perturbation : 

"  DEAR  SIR, — I  have  something  awful  to  tell  you.  I 
might  write  pages  without  making  you  think  better 
of  me,  and  I  will  let  you  think  the  worst  at  once.  I 
am  not  what  I  pretended  to  be.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Verrian 

11 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

saying  what  I  did,  and  asking  to  see  the  rest  of  his  story 
on  the  impulse  of  the  moment.  I  had  been  reading  it, 
for  I  think  it  is  perfectly  fascinating;  and  a  friend 
of  mine,  another  girl,  and  I  got  together  trying  to  guess 
how  he  would  end  it,  and  we  began  to  dare  each  other 
to  write  to  him  and  ask.  At  first  we  did  not  dream  of 
doing  such  a  thing,  but  we  went  on,  and  just  for  the  fun 
of  it  we  drew  lots  to  see  which  should  write  to  him. 
The  lot  fell  to  me;  but  we  composed  that  letter  to 
gether,  and  we  put  in  about  my  dying  for  a  joke.  We 
never  intended  to  send  it;  but  then  one  thing  led  to 
another,  and  I  signed  it  with  my  real  name  and  we 
sent  it.  We  did  not  really  expect  to  hear  anything 
from  it,  for  we  supposed  he  must  get  lots  of  letters 
about  his  story  and  never  paid  any  attention  to  them. 
We  did  not  realize  what  we  had  done  till  I  got  your 
letter  yesterday.  Then  we  saw  it  all,  and  ever  since 
we  have  been  trying  to  think  what  to  do,  and  I  do  not 
believe  either  of  us  has  slept  a  moment.  We  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  only  one  thing  we 
could  do,  and  that  was  to  tell  you  just  exactly  how  it 
happened  and  take  the  consequences.  But  there  is  no 
reason  why  more  than  one  person  should  be  brought  into 
it,  and  so  I  will  not  let  my  friend  sign  this  letter  with 
me,  but  I  will  put  my  own  name  alone  to  it.  You  may 
not  think  it  is  my  real  name,  but  it  is;  you  can  find 
out  by  writing  to  the  postmaster  here.  I  do  not  know 
whether  you  will  publish  it  as  a  fraud  for  the  warning 
of  others,  but  I  shall  not  blame  you  if  you  do.  I 
deserve  anything.  Yours  truly, 

"  JERUSHA  PEREGRINE  BROWN." 

If  Verrian  had  been  an  older  man  life  might  have 
supplied  him  with  the  means  of  judging  the  writer  of 
this  letter.  But  his  experience  as  an  author  had  not 

12 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

been  very  great,  and  such  as  it  was  it  had  hardened 
and  sharpened  him.  There  was  nothing  wild  or  whirl 
ing  in  his  mood,  hut  in  the  deadly  hurt  which  had  heen 
inflicted  upon  his  vanity  he  coldly  and  carefully  studied 
what  deadlier  hurt  he  might  inflict  again.  He  was  of 
the  crueller  intent  because  he  had  not  known  how  much 
of  personal  vanity  there  was  in  the  seriousness  with 
which  he  took  himself  and  his  work.  He  had  supposed 
that  he  was  respecting  his  ethics  and  aesthetics,  his 
ideal  of  conduct  and  of  art,  but  now  it  was  brought  home 
to  him  that  he  was  swollen  with  the  conceit  of  his  own 
performance,  and  that,  however  well  others  thought  of 
it,  his  own  thought  of  it  far  outran  their  will  to  honor 
it.  He  wished  to  revenge  himself  for  this  consciousness 
as  well  as  the  offence  offered  him;  of  the  two  the  con 
sciousness  was  the  more  disagreeable. 

His  mother,  dressed  for  the  street,  came  in  where  he 
sat  quiet  at  his  desk,  with  the  editor's  letters  and  the 
girl's  before  him,  and  he  mutely  referred  them  to  her 
with  a  hand  lifted  over  his  shoulder.  She  read  them,  and 
then  she  said,  "  This  is  hard  to  bear,  Philip.  I  wish  I 
could  bear  it  for  you,  or  at  least  with  you ;  but  I'm  late 
for  my  engagement  with  Mrs.  Alfred,  as  it  is —  No,  I 
will  telephone  her  I'm  detained  and  we'll  talk  it  over — " 

"  No,  no !  Not  on  any  account !  I'd  rather  think  it 
out  for  myself.  You  couldn't  help  me.  After  all,  it 
hasn't  done  me  any  harm — " 

"  And  you've  had  a  great  escape !  And  I  won't  say  a 
word  more  now,  but  I'll  be  back  soon,  and  then  we — 
Oh,  I'm  so  sorry  I'm  going.'7 

Verrian  gave  a  laugh.  "  You  couldn't  do  anything 
if  you  stayed,  mother.  Do  go!" 

"  Well — "  She  looked  at  him,  smoothing  her  muff 
with  her  hand  a  moment,  and  then  she  dropped  a  fond 
kiss  on  his  cheek  and  obeyed  him. 

13 


IV 


VEERIAN  still  sat  at  his  desk,  thinking,  with  his  burn 
ing  face  in  his  hands.  It  was  covered  with  shame  for 
what  had  happened  to  him,  but  his  humiliation  had  no 
quality  of  pity  in  it.  He  must  write  to  that  girl,  and 
write  at  once,  and  his  sole  hesitation  was  as  to  the  form 
he  should  give  his  reply.  He  could  not  address  her  as 
Dear  Miss  Brown  or  as  Dear  Madam.  Even  Madam 
was  not  sharp  and  forbidding  enough ;  besides,  Madam, 
alone  or  with  the  senseless  prefix,  was  archaic,  and 
Verrian  wished  to  be  very  modern  with  this  most  of 
fensive  instance  of  the  latest  girl.  He  decided  upon 
dealing  with  her  in  the  third  person,  and  trusting  to  his 
literary  skill  to  keep  the  form  from  clumsiness. 

He  tried  it  in  that  form,  and  it  was  simply  disgusting, 
the  attitude  stiff  and  swelling,  and  the  diction  affected 
and  unnatural.  With  a  quick  reversion  to  the  impos 
sible  first  type,  he  recast  his  letter  in  what  was  now 
the  only  possible  shape. 

"  MY  DEAR  Miss  BROWN, — The  editor  of  the  Ameri 
can  Miscellany  has  sent  me  a  copy  of  his  recent  letter 
to  you  and  your  own  reply,  and  has  remanded  to  me 
an  affair  which  resulted  from  my  going  to  him  with 
your  request  to  see  the  close  of  my  story  now  publish 
ing  in  his  magazine. 

"After  giving  the  matter  my  best  thought,  I  have 
concluded  that  it  will  be  well  to  enclose  all  the  exhibits 
to  you,  and  I  now  do  this  in  the  hope  that  a  serious 

14 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

study  of  them  will  enable  you  to  share  my  surprise  at 
the  moral  and  social  conditions  in  which  the  business 
could  originate.  I  willingly  leave  with  you  the  ques 
tion  which  is  the  more  trustworthy,  your  letter  to  me 
or  your  letter  to  him,  or  which  the  more  truly  repre 
sents  the  interesting  diversity  of  your  nature.  I  con 
fess  that  the  first  moved  me  more  than  the  second,  and 
I  do  not  see  why  I  should  not  tell  you  that  as  soon  as 
I  had  your  request  I  went  with  it  to  Mr.  Armiger  and 
did  what  I  could  to  prompt  his  compliance  with  it.  In 
putting  these  papers  out  of  my  hands,  I  ought  to  ac 
knowledge  that  they  have  formed  a  temptation  to  make 
literary  use  of  the  affair  which  I  shall  now  be  the  bet 
ter  fitted  to  resist.  You  will,  of  course,  be  amused  by 
the  ease  with  which  you  could  abuse  my  reliance  on 
your  good  faith,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  not  allow  any 
shame  for  your  trick  to  qualify  your  pleasure  in  its 
success. 

"  It  will  not  be  necessary  for  you  to  acknowledge  this 
letter  and  its  enclosures.  I  will  register  the  package, 
so  that  it  will  not  fail  to  reach  you,  and  I  will  return 
any  answer  of  yours  unopened,  or,  if  not  recognizably 
addressed,  then  unread. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  P.  S.  VERBIAN." 

He  read  and  read  again  these  lines,  with  only  the 
sense  of  their  insufficiency  in  doing  the  effect  of  the 
bitterness  in  his  heart.  If  the  letter  was  insulting, 
it  was  by  no  means  as  insulting  as  he  would  have 
liked  to  make  it.  Whether  it  would  be  wounding  enough 
was  something  that  depended  upon  the  person  whom  he 
wished  to  wound.  All  that  was  proud  and  vain  and 
cruel  in  him  surged  up  at  the  thought  of  the  trick  that 
had  been  played  upon  him,  and  all  that  was  sweet  and 

15 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

kind  and  gentle  in  him,  when  he  believed  the  trick  was 
a  genuine  appeal,  turned  to  their  counter  qualities. 
Yet,  feeble  and  inadequate  as  his  letter  was,  he  knew 
that  he  could  not  do  more  or  worse  by  trying,  and  he 
so  much  feared  that  by  waiting  he  might  do  less  and 
better  that  he  hurried  it  into  the  post  at  once.  If  his 
mother  had  been  at  hand  he  would  have  shown  it  her, 
though  he  might  not  have  been  ruled  by  her  judgment 
of  it.  He  was  glad  that  she  was  not  with  him,  for  either 
she  would  have  had  her  opinion  of  what  would  be  more 
telling,  or  she  would  have  insisted  upon  his  delaying 
any  sort  of  reply,  and  he  could  not  endure  the  thought 
of  difference  or  delay. 

He  asked  himself  whether  he  should  let  her  see  the 
rough  first  draft  of  his  letter  or  not,  and  he  decided 
that  he  would  not.  But  when  she  came  into  his  study 
on  her  return  he  showed  it  her. 

She  read  it  in  silence,  and  then  she  seemed  to  tempo 
rize  in  asking,  "  Where  are  her  two  letters  ?" 

"  I've  sent  them  back  with  the  answer." 

His  mother  let  the  paper  drop  from  her  hands. 
"  Philip !  You  haven't  sent  this!" 

"  Yes,  I  have.  It  wasn't  what  I  wanted  to  make  it, 
but  I  wished  to  get  the  detestable  experience  out  of 
my  mind,  and  it  was  the  best  I  could  do  at  the  moment. 
Don't  you  like  it  ?" 

"  Oh — "  She  seemed  beginning  to  say  something, 
but  without  saying  anything  she  took  the  fallen  leaf 
up  and  read  it  again. 

"  Well !"  he  demanded,  with  impatience. 

"  Oh,  you  may  have  been  right.  I  hope  you've  not 
been  wrong." 

"Mother!" 

"  She  deserved  the  severest  things  you  could  say ;  and 
yet—" 

16 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"Well?" 

"  Perhaps  she  was  punished  enough  already ." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  I  don't  like  your  being — vindictive." 

"  Vindictive  ?" 

"  Being  so  terribly  just,  then."  She  added,  at  his 
blank  stare,  "  This  is  killing,  Philip." 

He  gave  a  bitter  laugh.  "  I  don't  think  it  will  kill 
her.  She  isn't  that  kind." 

"  She's  a  girl."  his  mother  said,  with  a  kind  of  sad 
absence. 

"  But  not  a  single-minded  girl,  you  warned  me.  I 
wish  I  could  have  taken  your  warning.  It  would  have 
saved  me  from  playing  the  fool  before  myself  and 
giving  myself  away  to  Armiger,  and  letting  him  give 
himself  away.  I  don't  think  Miss  Brown  will  suffer 
much  before  she  dies.  She  will  '  get  together/  as  she 
calls  it,  with  that  other  girl  and  have  '  a  real  good  time ' 
over  it.  You  know  the  village  type  and  the  village  con 
ditions,  where  the  vulgar  ignorance  of  any  larger  world 
is  so  thick  you  could  cut  it  with  a  knife.  Don't  be 
troubled  by  my  vindictiveness  or  my  justice,  mother! 
I  begin  to  think  I  have  done  justice  and  not  fallen  short 
of  it,  as  I  was  afraid." 

Mrs.  Verrian  sighed,  and  again  she  gave  his  letter 
back  to  her  son.  "  Perhaps  you  are  right,  Philip.  She 
is  probably  so  tough  as  not  to  feel  it  very  painfully." 

"  She's  not  so  tough  but  she'll  be  very  glad  to  get 
out  of  it  so  lightly.  She  has  had  a  useful  scare,  and 
I've  done  her  a  favor  in  making  the  scare  a  sharp  one. 
I  suppose,"  Verrian  mused,  "  that  she  thinks  I've  kept 
copies  of  her  letters." 

"  Yes.    Why  didn't  you  ?"  his  mother  asked. 

Verrian  laughed,  only  a  little  less  bitterly  than  be 
fore.  "  I  shall  begin  to  believe  you're  all  alike,  mother. 

17 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

I  didn't  keep  copies  of  her  letters  because  I  wanted  to 
get  her  and  her  letters  out  of  my  mind,  finally  and 
forever.  Besides,  I  didn't  choose  to  emulate  her  du 
plicity  by  any  sort  of  dissimulation. 

"  I  see  what  you  mean,"  his  mother  said.  "  And,  of 
course,  you  have  taken  the  only  honorable  way." 

Then  they  were  both  silent  for  a  time,  thinking  their 
several  thoughts. 

Verrian  broke  the  silence  to  say,  "  I  wish  I  knew 
what  sort  of  '  other  girl '  it  was  that  she  '  got  together 
with.' " 

"Why?" 

"  Because  she  wrote  a  more  cultivated  letter  than  this 
magnanimous  creature  who  takes  all  the  blame  to  her- 
self." 

"  Then  you  don't  believe  they're  both  the  same  ?" 

"  They  are  both  the  same  in  stationery  and  chirog- 
raphy,  but  not  in  literature." 

"  I  hope  you  won't  get  to  thinking  about  her,  then," 
his  mother  entreated,  intelligibly  but  not  definitely. 

"  Not  seriously,"  Verrian  reassured  her.  "  I've  had 
my  medicine." 


CONTINUITY  is  so  much  the  lesson  of  experience  that 
in  the  course  of  a  life  by  no  means  long  it  becomes  the 
instinctive  expectation.  The  event  that  has  happened 
will  happen  again ;  it  will  prolong  itself  in  a  series  of 
recurrences  by  which  each  one's  episode  shares  in  the 
unending  history  of  all.  The  sense  of  this  is  so  per 
vasive  that  humanity  refuses  to  accept  death  itself  as 
final.  In  the  agonized  affections,  the  shattered  hopes, 
of  those  who  remain,  the  severed  life  keeps  on  un- 
brokenly,  and  when  time  and  reason  prevail,  at  least  as 
to  the  life  here,  the  defeated  faith  appeals  for  fulfil 
ment  to  another  world,  and  the  belief  of  immortality 
holds  against  the  myriad  years  in  which  none  of  the 
numberless  dead  have  made  an  indisputable  sign  in  wit 
ness  of  it.  The  lost  limb  still  reports  its  sensations  to 
the  brain;  the  fixed  habit  mechanically  attempts  its 
repetition  when  the  conditions  render  it  impossible. 

Verrian  was  aware  how  deeply  and  absorbingly  he 
had  brooded  upon  the  incident  which  he  had  done  his 
utmost  to  close,  when  he  found  himself  expecting  an 
answer  of  some  sort  from  his  unknown  correspondent. 
He  perceived,  then,  without  owning  the  fact,  that  he 
had  really  hoped  for  some  protest,  some  excuse,  some 
extenuation,  which  in  the  end  would  suffer  him  to  be 
more  merciful.  Though  he  had  wished  to  crush  her 
into  silence,  and  to  forbid  her  all  hope  of  his  forgive 
ness,  he  had,  in  a  manner,  not  meant  to  do  it.  He  had 
kept  a  secret  place  in  his  soul  where  the  sinner  against 
3  19 


FENNEL     AND     HUE 

him  could  find  refuge  from  his  justice,  and  when  this 
sanctuary  remained  unattempted  he  found  himself  with 
a  regret  that  he  had  barred  the  way  to  it  so  effectually. 
The  regret  was  so  vague,  so  formless,  however,  that  he 
could  tacitly  deny  it  to  himself  at  all  times,  and  ex 
plicitly  deny  it  to  his  mother  at  such  times  as  her  touch 
taught  him  that  it  was  tangible. 

One  day,  after  ten  or  twelve  days  had  gone  by,  she 
asked  him,  "  You  haven't  heard  anything  more  from 
that  girl  ?" 

"  What  girl  ?"  he  returned,  as  if  he  did  not  know ; 
and  he  frowned.  "  You  mean  the  girl  that  wrote  me 
about  my  story?" 

"  Yes." 

He  continued  to  frown  rather  more  darkly.  "  I 
don't  see  how  you  could  expect  me  to  hear  from  her, 
after  what  I  wrote.  But,  to  be  categorical,  I  haven't, 
mother." 

"  Oh,  of  course  not.  Did  you  think  she  would  be  so 
easily  silenced  ?" 

"  I  did  what  I  could  to  crush  her  into  silence." 

"  Yes,  and  you  did  quite  right ;  I  am  more  and  more 
convinced  of  that.  But  such  a  very  tough  young  per 
son  might  have  refused  to  stay  crushed.  She  might 
very  naturally  have  got  herself  into  shape  again  and 
smoothed  out  the  creases,  at  least  so  far  to  try  some 
further  defence." 

"  It  seems  that  she  hasn't,"  Verrian  said,  still  darkly, 
but  not  so  frowningly. 

"  I  should  have  fancied,"  his  mother  suggested,  "  that 
if  she  had  wanted  to  open  a  correspondence  with  you — 
if  that  was  her  original  object — she  would  not  have  let 
it  drop  so  easily." 

"  Has  she  let  it  drop  easily  ?  I  thought  I  had  left 
her  no  possible  chance  of  resuming  it." 

20 


"'ARMIGER  ASKED  ME  IF  i  HAD  EVER  HEARD  ANYTHING  MORE 

FROM    THAT    GIRL'" 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

"  That  is  true,"  his  mother  said,  and  for  the  time 
she  said  no  more  about  the  matter. 

Not  long  after  this  he  came  home  from  the  magazine 
office  and  reported  to  her  from  Armiger  that  the  story 
was  catching  on  more  and  more  with  the  best  class  of 
readers.  The  editor  had  shown  Yerrian  some  references 
to  it  in  newspapers  of  good  standing  and  several  let 
ters  about  it. 

"  I  thought  you  might  like  to  look  at  the  let 
ters,"  Verrian  said,  and  he  took  some  letters  from 
his  pocket  and  handed  them  to  her  across  the  lunch- 
table.  She  did  not  immediately  look  at  them,  because 
he  went  on  to  add  something  that  they  both  felt  to  be 
more  important.  "  Armiger  says  there  has  been  some 
increase  of  the  sales,  which  I  can  attribute  to  my  story 
if  I  have  the  cheek." 

"  That  is  good." 

"  And  the  house  wants  to  publish  the  book.  They 
think,  down  there,  that  it  will  have  a  very  pretty  suc 
cess — not  be  a  big  seller,  of  course,  but  something  com 
fortable." 

Mrs.  Verrian's  eyes  were  suffused  with  pride  and 
fondness.  "  And  you  can  always  think,  Philip,  that 
this  has  come  to  you  without  the  least  lowering  of 
your  standard,  without  forsaking  your  ideal  for  a  mo 
ment." 

"  That  is  certainly  a  satisfaction." 

She  kept  her  proud  and  tender  gaze  upon  him.  "  N"o 
one  will  ever  know  as  I  do  how  faithful  you  have  been 
to  your  art.  Did  any  of  the  newspapers  recognize  that 
— or  surmise  it,  or  suspect  it  ?" 

"  No,  that  isn't  the  turn  they  take.  They  speak  of 
the  strong  love  interest  involved  in  the  problem.  And 
the  abundance  of  incident.  I  looked  out  to  keep  some 
thing  happening,  you  know.  I'm  sorry  I  didn't  ask 

21 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

Anniger  to  let  me  bring  the  notices  home  to  you.  I'm 
not  sure  that  I  did  wisely  not  to  subscribe  to  that  press- 
clippings  bureau." 

His  mother  smiled.  "  You  mustn't  let  prosperity  cor 
rupt  you,  Philip.  Wouldn't  seeing  what  the  press  is 
saying  of  it  distract  you  from  the  real  aim  you  had  in 
your  story  ?" 

"  We're  all  weak,  of  course.  It  might,  if  the  story 
were  not  finished ;  but  as  it  is,  I  think  I  could  be  proof 
against  the  stupidest  praise." 

"  Well,  for  my  part,  I'm  glad  you  didn't  subscribe 
to  the  clippings  bureau.  It  would  have  been  a  disturb 
ing  element."  She  now  looked  down  at  the  letters  as 
if  she  were  going  to  take  them  up,  and  he  followed  the 
direction  of  her  eyes.  As  if  reminded  of  the  fact  by 
this,  he  said : 

"  Armiger  asked  me  if  I  had  ever  heard  anything 
more  from  that  girl." 

"  Has  lie  ?"  his  mother  eagerly  asked,  transferring 
her  glance  from  the  letters  to  her  son's  face. 

"  Not  a  word.    I  think  I  silenced  her  thoroughly." 

"  Yes,"  his  mother  said.  "  There  could  have  been 
no  good  object  in  prolonging  the  affair  and  letting  her 
confirm  herself  in  the  notion  that  she  was  of  sufficient 
importance  either  to  you  or  to  him  for  you  to  continue 
the  correspondence  with  her.  She  couldn't  learn  too 
distinctly  that  she  had  done  a  very  wrong  thing  in  try 
ing  to  play  such  a  trick  on  you." 

"  That  was  the  way  I  looked  at  it,"  Verrian  said, 
but  he  drew  a  light  sigh,  rather  wearily. 

"  I  hope,"  his  mother  said,  with  a  recurrent  glance 
at  the  letters,  "  that  there  is  nothing  of  that  silly  kind 
among  these." 

"  No,  these  are  blameless  enough,  unless  they  are 
to  be  blamed  for  being  too  flattering.  That  girl  seems 

22 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

to  be  sole  of  her  kind,  unless  the  girl  that  she  '  got  to 
gether  with '  was  really  like  her." 

"  I  don't  believe  there  was  any  other  girl.  I  never 
thought  there  was  more  than  one." 

"  There  seemed  to  be  two  styles  and  two  grades  of 
culture,  such  as  they  were." 

"  Oh,  she  could  easily  imitate  two  manners.  She 
must  have  been  a  clever  girl,"  Mrs.  Verrian  said,  with 
that  admiration  for  any  sort  of  cleverness  in  her  sex 
which  even  very  good  women  cannot  help  feeling. 

"  Well,  perhaps  she  was  punished  enough  for  both 
the  characters  she  assumed,"  Verrian  said,  with  a  smile 
that  was  not  gay. 

"  Don't  think  about  her !"  his  mother  returned,  with 
a  perception  of  his  mood.  "  I'm  only  thankful  that 
she's  out  of  our  lives  in  every  sort  of  way." 


VI 


VEERIAN  said  nothing,  but  he  reflected  with  a  sort  of 
gloomy  amusement  how  impossible  it  was  for  any  wom 
an,  even  a  woman  so  wide-minded  and  high-principled 
as  his  mother,  to  escape  the  personal  view  of  all  things 
and  all  persons  which  women  take.  He  tacitly  noted  the 
fact,  as  the  novelist  notes  whatever  happens  or  appears 
to  him,  but  he  let  the  occasion  drop  out  of  his  mind  as 
soon  as  he  could  after  it  had  dropped  out  of  his  talk. 

The  night  when  the  last  number  of  his  story  came 
to  them  in  the  magazine,  and  was  already  announced 
as  a  book,  he  sat  up  with  his  mother  celebrating,  as 
he  said,  and  exulting  in  the  future  as  well  as  the  past. 
They  had  a  little  supper,  which  she  cooked  for  him  in 
a  chafing-dish,  in  the  dining-room  of  the  tiny  apart 
ment  where  they  lived  together,  and  she  made  some 
coffee  afterwards,  to  carry  off  the  effect  of  the  Newburg 
lobster.  Perhaps  because  there  was  nothing  to  carry 
off  the  effect  of  the  coffee,  he  heard  her,  through  the 
partition  of  their  rooms,  stirring  restlessly  after  he  had 
gone  to  bed,  and  a  little  later  she  came  to  his  door,  which 
she  set  ajar,  to  ask,  "  Are  you  awake,  Philip  ?" 

"  You  seem  to  be,  mother,"  he  answered,  with  an 
amusement  at  her  question  which  seemed  not  to  have 
imparted  itself  to  her  when  she  came  in  and  stood 
beside  his  bed  in  her  dressing-gown. 

"  You  don't  think  we  have  judged  her  too  harshly, 
Philip?" 

"  Do  you,  mother  ?" 

24 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

"  No,  I  think  we  couldn't  be  too  severe  in  a  thing 
like  that.  She  probably  thought  you  were  like  some 
of  the  other  story-writers ;  she  couldn't  feel  differences, 
shades.  She  pretended  to  be  taken  with  the  circum 
stances  of  your  work,  but  she  had  to  do  that  if  she 
wanted  to  fool  you.  Well,  she  has  got  her  come-uppings, 
as  she  would  probably  say." 

Verrian  replied,  thoughtfully,  "  She  didn't  strike  me 
as  a  country  person — at  least,  in  her  first  letter." 

"  Then  you  still  think  she  didn't  write  both  ?" 

"  If  she  did,  she  was  trying  her  hand  in  a  personality 
she  had  invented." 

"  Girls  are  very  strange,"  his  mother  sighed.  "  They 
like  excitement,  adventure.  It's  very  dull  in  those  lit 
tle  places.  I  shouldn't  wish  you  to  think  any  harm 
of  the  poor  thing." 

"  Poor  thing  ?  Why  this  magnanimous  compassion, 
mother?" 

"  Oh,  nothing.  But  I  know  how  I  was  myself  when 
I  was  a  girl.  I  used  almost  to  die  of  hunger  for  some 
thing  to  happen.  Can  you  remember  just  what  you  said 
in  your  letter?" 

Verrian  laughed.  "  No,  I  can't.  But  I  don't  believe 
I  said  half  enough.  You're  nervous,  mother." 

"  Yes,  I  am.  But  don't  you  get  to  worrying.  I  mere 
ly  got  to  thinking  how  I  should  hate  to  have  anybody's 
unhappiness  mixed  up  with  this  happiness  of  ours.  I 
do  so  want  your  pleasure  in  your  success  to  be  pure, 
not  tainted  with  the  pain  of  any  human  creature." 

Verrian  answered  with  light  cynicism :  "  It  will  be 
tainted  writh  the  pain  of  the  fellows  who  don't  like  me, 
or  who  haven't  succeeded,  and  they'll  take  care  to  let 
me  share  their  pain  if  ever  they  can.  But  if  you  mean 
that  merry  maiden  up  country,  she's  probably  thinking, 
if  she  thinks  about  it  at  all,  that  she's  the  luckiest 

25 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

girl  in  the  United  States  to  have  got  out  of  an  awful 
scrape  so  easily.  At  the  worst,  I  only  had  fun  with  her 
in  my  letter.  Probably  she  sees  that  she  has  nothing 
to  grieve  for  but  her  own  break." 

"  No,  and  you  did  just  as  you  should  have  done ;  and 
I  am  glad  you  don't  feel  bitterly  about  it.  You  don't, 
do  you  ?" 

"  Not  the  least." 

His  mother  stooped  over  and  kissed  him  where  he  lay 
smiling.  "  Well,  that's  good.  After  all,  it's  you  I  cared 
for.  Now  I  can  say  good-night."  But  she  lingered  to 
tuck  him  in  a  little,  from  the  persistence  of  the  mother 
habit.  "  I  wish  you  may  never  do  anything  that  you 
will  be  sorry  for." 

"  Well,  I  won't — if  it's  a  good  action." 

They  laughed  together,  and  she  left  the  room,  still 
looking  back  to  see  if  there  was  anything  more  she 
could  do  for  him,  while  he  lay  smiling,  intelligently 
for  what  she  was  thinking,  and  patiently  for  what  she 
was  doing. 


VII 


EVEN  in  the  time  which  was  then  coming  and  which 
now  is,  when  successful  authors  are  almost  as  many  as 
millionaires,  Verrian's  book  brought  him  a  pretty  celeb 
rity  ;  and  this  celebrity  was  in  a  way  specific.  It  related 
to  the  quality  of  his  work,  which  was  quietly  artistic 
and  psychological,  whatever  liveliness  of  incident  it  ut 
tered  on  the  surface.  He  belonged  to  the  good  school 
which  is  of  no  fashion  and  of  every  time,  far  both  from 
actuality  and  unreality ;  and  his  recognition  came  from 
people  whose  recognition  was  worth  having.  With  this 
came  the  wider  notice  which  was  not  worth  having, 
like  the  notice  of  Mrs.  Westangle,  since  so  well  known 
to  society  reporters  as  a  society  woman,  which  could  not 
be  called  recognition  of  him,  because  it  did  not  involve 
any  knowledge  of  his  book,  not  even  its  title.  She  did 
not  read  any  sort  of  books,  and  she  assimilated  him  by 
a  sort  of  atmospheric  sense.  She  was  sure  of  nothing 
but  the  attention  paid  him  in  a  certain  very  goodish 
house,  by  people  whom  she  heard  talking  in  unintel 
ligible  but  unmistakable  praise,  when  she  said,  casually, 
with  a  liquid  glitter  of  her  sweet,  small  eyes,  "  I  wish 
you  would  come  down  to  my  place,  Mr.  Verrian.  I'm 
asking  a  few  young  people  for  Christmas  week.  Will 
you?" 

"  Why,  thank  you — thank  you  very  much,"  Yerrian 
said,  waiting  to  hear  more  in  explanation  of  the  hos 
pitality  launched  at  him.  He  had  never  seen  Mrs. 
Westangle  till  then,  or  heard  of  her,  and  he  had  not  the 

27 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

least  notion  where  she  lived.  But  she  seemed  to  have 
social  authority,  though  Verrian,  in  looking  round  at  his 
hostess  and  her  daughter,  who  stood  near,  letting  peo 
ple  take  leave,  learned  nothing  from  their  common 
smile.  Mrs.  Westangle  had  glided  close  to  him,  in  the 
way  she  had  of  getting  very  near  without  apparently 
having  advanced  by  steps,  and  she  stood  gleaming  and 
twittering  up  at  him. 

"  I  shall  send  you  a  little  note ;  I  won't  let  you  for 
get,"  she  said.  Then  she  suddenly  shook  hands  with  the 
ladies  of  the  house  and  was  flashingly  gone. 

Verrian  thought  he  might  ask  the  daughter  of  the 
house,  "  And  if  I  don't  forget,  am  I  engaged  to  spend 
Christmas  week  with  her  ?" 

The  girl  laughed.  "  If  she  doesn't  forget,  you  are. 
But  you'll  have  a  good  time.  She'll  know  how  to 
manage  that."  Other  guests  kept  coming  up  to  take 
leave,  and  Yerrian,  who  did  not  want  to  go  just  yet, 
was  retired  to  the  background,  where  the  girl's  voice, 
thrown  over  her  shoulder  at  him,  reached  him  in  the 
words,  as  gay  as  if  they  were  the  best  of  the  joke,  "  It's 
on  the  Sound." 

The  inference  was  that  Mrs.  Westangle's  place  was 
on  the  Sound ;  and  that  was  all  Verrian  knew  about  it 
till  he  got  her  little  note.  Mrs.  Westangle  knew  how 
to  write  in  a  formless  hand,  but  she  did  not  know  how 
to  spell,  and  she  had  thought  it  best  to  have  a  secretary 
who  could  write  well  and  spell  correctly.  Though,  as 
far  as  literacy  was  concerned,  she  was  such  an  almost 
incomparably  ignorant  woman,  she  had  all  the  knowl 
edge  the  best  society  wants,  or,  if  she  found  herself  out 
of  any,  she  went  and  bought  some ;  she  was  able  to  buy 
almost  anything. 

Verrian  thanked  the  secretary  for  remembering  him, 
in  the  belief  that  he  was  directly  thanking  Mrs.  West- 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

angle,  whose  widespread  consciousness  his  happiness  in 
accepting  did  not  immediately  reach;  and  in  the  very 
large  house  party,  which  he  duly  joined  under  her  roof, 
he  was  aware  of  losing  distinctiveness  almost  to  the 
point  of  losing  identity.  This  did  not  quite  happen 
on  the  way  to  Belford,  for,  when  he  went  to  take  his 
seat  in  the  drawing-room  car,  a  girl  in  the  chair  front 
ing  him  put  out  her  hand  with  the  laugh  of  Miss 
Macroyd. 

"  She  did  remember  you !"  she  cried  out.  "  How 
delightful !  I  don't  see  how  she  ever  got  onto  you  " 
— she  made  the  slang  her  own — "  in  the  first  place,  and 
she  must  have  worked  hard  to  be  sure  of  you  since." 

Verrian  hung  up  his  coat  and  put  his  suit-case  be 
hind  his  chair,  the  porter  having  put  it  where  he  could 
not  wheel  himself  vis-a-vis  with  the  girl.  "  She  took 
all  the  time  there  was,"  he  answered.  "  I  got  my  in 
vitation  only  the  day  before  yesterday,  and  if  I  had 
been  in  more  demand,  or  had  a  worse  conscience — " 

"  Oh,  do  say  worse  conscience !  It's  so  much  more 
interesting,"  the  girl  broke  in. 

"  — I  shouldn't  have  the  pleasure  of  going  to  Seasands 
with  you  now,"  he  concluded,  and  she  gave  her  laugh. 
"  Do  I  understand  that  simply  my  growing  fame 
wouldn't  have  prevailed  with  her  ?" 

Anything  seemed  to  make  Miss  Macroyd  laugh. 
"  She  couldn't  have  cared  about  that,  and  she  wouldn't 
have  known.  You  may  be  sure  that  it  was  a  social 
question  with  her  after  the  personal  question  was  set 
tled.  She  must  have  liked  your  looks!"  Again  Miss 
Macroyd  laughed. 

"  On  that  side  I'm  invulnerable.  It's  only  a  literary 
vanity  to  be  soothed  or  to  be  wounded  that  I  have," 
Verrian  said. 

"  Oh,  there  wouldn't  be  anything  personal  in  her 
29 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

liking  your  looks.  It  would  be  merely  deciding  that 
personally  you  would  do,"  Miss  Macroyd  laughed,  as 
always,  and  Verrian  put  on  a  mock  seriousness  in  ask 
ing: 

"  Then  I  needn't  be  serious  if  there  should  happen  to 
be  anything  so  Westangular  as  a  Mr.  Westangle  ?" 

"  Not  the  least  in  the  world." 

"  But  there  is  something  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  believe  so.    But  not  probably  at  Seasands." 

"  Is  that  her  house  ?" 

"  Yes.  Every  other  name  had  been  used,  and  she 
couldn't  say  Soundsands." 

"  Then  where  would  the  Mr.  Westangular  part  more 
probably  be  found?" 

"  Oh,  in  Montana  or  Mesopotamia,  or  any  of  those 
places.  Don't  you  know  about  him?  How  ignorant 
literary  people  can  be !  Why,  he  was  the  Amalgamated 
Clothespin.  You  haven't  heard  of  that  ?" 

She  went  on  to  tell  him,  with  gay  digressions,  about 
the  invention  which  enabled  Westangle  to  buy  up  the 
other  clothespins  and  merge  them  in  his  own — to  become 
a  commercial  octopus,  clutching  the  throats  of  other 
clothespin  inventors  in  the  tentacles  of  the  Westangle 
pin.  "  But  he  isn't  in  clothespins  now.  He's  in  mines, 
and  banks,  and  steamboats,  and  railroads,  and  I  don't 
know  what  all ;  and  Mrs.  Westangle,  the  second  of  her 
name,  never  was  in  clothespins." 

Miss  Macroyd  laughed  all  through  her  talk,  and  she 
was  in  a  final  burst  of  laughing  when  the  train  slowed 
into  Stamford.  There  a  girl  came  into  the  car  trailing 
her  skirts  with  a  sort  of  vivid  debility  and  overturn 
ing  some  minor  pieces  of  hand  -  baggage  which  her 
draperies  swept  out  of  their  shelter  beside  the  chairs. 
She  had  to  take  one  of  the  seats  which  back  against  the 
wall  of  the  state-room,  where  she  must  face  the  whole 

30 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

length  of  the  car.  She  sat  weakly  fallen  back  in  the 
chair  and  motionless,  as  if  almost  unconscious;  but 
after  the  train  had  begun  to  stir  she  started  up,  and  with 
a  quick  flinging  of  her  veil  aside  turned  to  look  out  of 
the  window.  In  the  flying  instant  Verrian  saw  a  color 
less  face  with  pinched  and  sunken  eyes  under  a  worn- 
looking  forehead,  and  a  withered  mouth  whose  lips 
parted  feebly. 

On  her  part,  Miss  Macroyd  had  doubtless  already 
noted  that  the  girl  was,  with  no  show  of  expensiveness, 
authoritatively  well  gowned  and  personally  hatted.  She 
stared  at  her,  and  said,  "  What  a  very  hunted  and  es 
caping  effect." 

"  She  does  look  rather — fugitive,"  Verrian  agreed, 
staring  too. 

"  One  might  almost  fancy — an  asylum." 

"  Yes,  or  a  hospital." 

They  continued  both  to  stare  at  her,  helpless  for  what 
ever  different  reasons  to  take  their  eyes  away,  and  they 
were  still  interested  in  her  when  they  heard  her  asking 
the  conductor,  "  Must  I  change  and  take  another  train 
before  we  get  to  Belf ord  ?  My  friends  thought — " 

"  No,  this  train  stops  at  Southfield,"  the  conductor 
answered,  absently  biting  several  holes  into  her  draw 
ing-room  ticket. 

"  Can  she  be  one  of  us? '  Miss  Macroyd  demanded,  in 
a  dramatic  whisper. 

"  She  might  be  anything,"  Verrian  returned,  try 
ing  instantly,  with  a  whir  of  his  inventive  machinery,  to 
phrase  her.  He  made  a  sort  of  luxurious  failure  of  it, 
and  rested  content  with  her  face,  which  showed  itself 
now  in  profile  and  now  fronted  him  in  full,  and  now 
was  restless  and  now  subsided  in  a  look  of  delicate 
exhaustion.  He  would  have  said,  if  he  would  have  said 
anything  absolute,  that  she  was  a  person  who  had  some- 

31 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

thing  on  her  mind;  at  instants  she  had  that  hunted 
air,  passing  at  other  instants  into  that  air  of  escape. 
He  discussed  these  appearances  with  Miss  Macroyd,  but 
found  her  too  frankly  disputatious;  and  she  laughed 
too  much  and  too  loud. 


VIII 

AT  Southfield,  where  they  all  descended,  Miss  Mac- 
rojd  promptly  possessed  herself  of  a  groom,  who  came 
forward  tentatively,  touching  his  hat.  "  Miss  Mac- 
royd  ?"  she  suggested. 

"  Yes,  miss,"  the  man  said,  and  led  the  way  round 
the  station  to  the  victoria  which,  when  Miss  Macroyd's 
maid  had  mounted  to  the  place  beside  her,  had  no  room' 
for  any  one  else. 

Verrian  accounted  for  her  activity  upon  the  theory 
of  her  quite  justifiable  wish  not  to  arrive  at  Seasands 
with  a  young  man  whom  she  might  then  have  the  effect 
of  having  voluntarily  come  all  the  way  with ;  and  after 
one  or  two  circuits  of  the  station  it  was  apparent  to  him 
that  he  was  not  to  have  been  sent  for  from  Mrs.  West- 
angle's,  but  to  have  been  left  to  the  chances  of  the 
local  drivers  and  their  vehicles.  These  were  reduced 
to  a  single  carryall  and  a  frowsy  horse  whose  rough 
winter  coat  recalled  the  aspect  of  his  species  in  the 
period  following  the  glacial  epoch.  The  mud,  as  of  a 
world-thaw,  encrusted  the  wheels  and  curtains  of  the 
carryall. 

Verrian  seized  upon  it  and  then  went  into  the  wait 
ing-room,  where  he  had  left  his  suit-case.  He  found 
the  stranger  there  in  parley  with  the  young  woman  in 
the  ticket-office  about  a  conveyance  to  Mrs.  Westangle's. 
It  proved  that  he  had  secured  not  only  the  only  thing 
of  the  sort,  but  the  only  present  hope  of  any  other,  and 
in  the  hard  case  he  could  not  hesitate  with  distress  so 

33 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

interesting.  It  would  have  been  brutal  to  drive  off  and 
leave  that  girl  there,  and  it  would  have  been  a  vulgar 
flourish  to  put  the  entire  vehicle  at  her  service.  Be 
sides,  and  perhaps  above  all,  Verrian  had  no  idea  of 
depriving  himself  of  such  a  chance  as  heaven  seemed  to 
offer  him. 

He  advanced  with  the  delicacy  of  the  highest-bred 
hero  he  could  imagine,  and  said,  "  I  am  going  to  Mrs. 
Westangle's,  and  I'm  afraid  I've  got  the  only  con 
veyance — such  as  it  is.  If  you  would  let  me  offer  you 
half  of  it?  Mr.  Verrian,"  he  added,  at  the  light  of 
acceptance  instantly  kindling  in  her  face,  which  flushed 
thinly,  as  with  an  afterglow  of  invalidism. 

"  Why,  thank  you ;  I'm  afraid  I  must,  Mr.  Merriam," 
and  Verrian  was  aware  of  being  vexed  at  her  failure 
to  catch  his  name ;  the  name  of  Verrian  ought  to  have 
been  unmistakable.  "  The  young  lady  in  the  office  says 
there  won't  be  another,  and  I'm  expected  promptly." 
She  added,  with  a  little  tremor  of  the  lip,  "  I  don't 
understand  why  Mrs.  Westangle — "  But  then  she 
stopped. 

Verrian  interpreted  for  her :  "  The  sea-horses  must 
have  given  out  at  Seasands.  Or  probably  there's  some 
mistake,"  and  he  reflected  bitterly  upon  the  selfishness 
of  Miss  Macroyd  in  grabbing  that  victoria  for  herself 
and  her  maid,  not  considering  that  she  could  not  know, 
and  has  no  business  to  ask,  whether  this  girl  was  going 
to  Mrs.  Westangle's,  too.  "  Have  you  a  check  ?"  he 
asked.  "  I  think  our  driver  could  find  room  for  some 
thing  besides  my  valise.  Or  I  could  have  it  come — " 

"  Not  at  all,"  the  girl  said.  "  I  sent  my  trunk  ahead 
by  express." 

A  frowsy  man,  to  match  the  frowsy  horse,  looked  in 
impatiently.  "  Any  other  baggage  ?" 

"  No,"  Verrian  answered,  and  he  led  the  way  out 

34 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

after  the  vanishing  driver.  "  Our  chariot  is  back  here 
in  hiding,  Miss — " 

"  Shirley,"  she  said,  and  trailed  before  him  through 
the  door  he  opened. 

He  felt  that  he  did  not  do  it  as  a  man  of  the  world 
would  have  done  it,  and  in  putting  her  into  the  ram 
shackle  carryall  he  knew  that  he  had  not  the  grace  of 
the  sort  of  man  who  does  nothing  else.  But  Miss 
Shirley  seemed  to  have  grace  enough,  of  a  feeble  and 
broken  sort,  for  both,  and  he  resolved  to  supply  his 
own  lack  with  sincerity.  He  therefore  set  his  jaw 
firmly  and  made  its  upper  angles  jut  sharply  through 
his  clean-shaven  cheeks.  It  was  well  that  Miss  Shirley 
had  some  beauty  to  spare,  too,  for  Verrian  had  scarcely 
enough  for  himself.  Such  distinction  as  he  had  was 
from  a  sort  of  intellectual  tenseness  which  showed 
rather  in  the  gaunt  forms  of  his  face  than  in  the  gray 
eyes,  heavily  lashed  above  and  below,  and  looking  seri 
ous  but  dull  with  their  rank,  black  brows.  He  was 
chewing  a  cud  of  bitterness  in  the  accusal  he  made  him 
self  of  having  forced  Miss  Shirley  to  give  her  name; 
but  with  that  interesting  personality  at  his  side,  under 
the  same  tattered  and  ill-scented  Japanese  goat-skin, 
he  could  not  refuse  to  be  glad,  with  all  his  self-blame. 

"  I'm  afraid  it's  rather  a  long  drive — for  you,  Miss 
Shirley,"  he  ventured,  with  a  glance  at  her  face,  which 
looked  very  little  under  her  hat.  "  The  driver  says  it's 
five  miles  round  through  the  marshes." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  not  mind,"  she  said,  courageously,  if 
not  cheerfully,  and  he  did  not  feel  authorized  further  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  she  was  an  invalid,  or  at  best  a 
convalescent. 

"  These  wintry  tree-forms  are  fine,  though,"  he  found 
himself  obliged  to  conclude  his  apology,  rather  irrele 
vantly,  as  the  wheels  of  the  rattling  and  tilting  carry- 
4  35 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

all  crunched  the  surface  of  the  road  in  the  succession  of 
jerks  responding  to  the  alternate  walk  and  gallop  of 
the  horse. 

"  Yes,  they  are/'  Miss  Shirley  answered,  looking 
around  with  a  certain  surprise,  as  if  seeing  them  now 
for  the  first  time.  "  So  much  variety  of  color ;  and  that 
burnished  look  that  some  of  them  have."  The  trees, 
far  and  near,  were  giving  their  tones  and  lustres  in  the 
low  December  sun. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  it's  decidedly  more  refined  than  the 
autumnal  coloring  we  brag  of." 

"  It  is,"  she  approved,  as  with  novel  conviction. 
"  The  landscape  is  really  beautiful.  So  nice  and  flat," 
she  added. 

He  took  her  intention,  and  he  said,  as  he  craned  his 
neck  out  of  the  carryall  to  include  the  nearer  road 
side  stretches,  with  their  low  bushes  lifting  into  remoter 
trees,  "  It's  restful  in  a  way  that  neither  the  mountains 
nor  the  sea,  quite  manage." 

"  Oh  yes,"  she  sighed,  with  a  kind  of  weariness  which 
explained  itself  in  what  she  added :  "  It's  the  kind  of 
thing  you'd  like  to  have  keep  on  and  on."  She  seemed 
to  say  that  more  to  herself  than  to  him,  and  his  eyes 
questioned  her.  She  smiled  slightly  in  explaining:  "  I 
suppose  I  find  it  all  the  more  beautiful  because  this  is 
my  first  real  look  into  the  world  after  six  months  in 
doors." 

"  Oh !"  he  said,  and  there  was  no  doubt  a  prompting 
in  his  tone. 

She  smiled  still.  "  Sick  people  are  terribly  egotisti 
cal,  and  I  suppose  it's  my  conceit  of  having  been  the 
centre  of  the  universe  so  lately  that  makes  me  mention 
it."  And  here  she  laughed  a  little  at  herself,  showing 
a  charming  little  peculiarity  in  the  catch  of  her  upper 
lip  on  her  teeth.  "  But  this  is  divine — this  air  and  this 

36 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

sight."  She  put  her  head  out  of  her  side  of  the  carry 
all,  and  drank  them  in  with  her  lungs  and  eyes. 

When  she  leaned  back  again  on  the  seat  she  said, 
"  I  can't  get  enough  of  it." 

"But  isn't  this  old  rattletrap  rather  too  rough  for 
you?"  he  asked. 

"  Oh  no,"  she  said,  visiting  him  with  a  furtive 
turn  of  her  eyes.  "  It's  quite  ideally  what  invalids  in 
easy  circumstances  are  advised  to  take  —  carriage  ex 


ercise." 


"  Yes,  it's  certainly  carriage  exercise,"  Yerrian  ad 
mitted  in  the  same  spirit,  if  it  was  a  drolling  spirit. 
He  could  not  help  being  amused  by  the  situation  in 
which  they  had  been  brought  together,  through  the 
vigorous  promptitude  of  Miss  Macroyd  in  making  the 
victoria  her  own,  and  the  easy  indifference  of  Mrs. 
Westangle  as  to  how  they  should  get  to  her  house.  If 
he  had  been  alone  he  might  have  felt  the  indifference 
as  a  slight,  but  as  it  was  he  felt  it  rather  a  favor.  If 
Miss  Shirley  was  feeling  it  a  slight,  she  was  too  secret 
or  too  sweet  to  let  it  be  known,  and  he  thought  that  was 
nice  of  her.  Still,  he  believed  he  might  recognize  the 
fact  without  deepening  a  possible  hurt  of  hers,  and  he 
added,  with  no  apparent  relevance,  "  If  Mrs.  Westangle 
was  not  looking  for  us  on  this  train,  she  will  find  that 
it  is  the  unexpected  which  happens." 

"  We  are  certainly  going  to  happen,"  the  girl  said, 
with  an  acceptance  of  the  plural  which  deepened  the 
intimacy  of  the  situation,  and  which  was  not  displeasing 
to  Verrian  when  she  added,  "  If  our  friend's  vehicle 
holds  out."  Then  she  turned  her  face  full  upon  him, 
with  what  affected  him  as  austere  resolution,  in  con 
tinuing,  "  But  I  can't  let  you  suppose  that  you're  con 
veying  a  society  person,  or  something  of  that  sort,  to 
Mrs.  Westangle's."  His  own  face  expressed  his  mystifi- 

37 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

cation,  and  she  concluded,  "  I'm  simply  going  there  to 
begin  my  work." 

He  smiled  provisionally  in  temporizing  with  the  rid 
dle.  "  You  women  are  wonderful,  nowadays,  for  the 
work  you  do." 

"  Oh,  but,"  she  protested,  nervously,  anxiously,  "  it 
isn't  good  work  that  I'm  going  to  do — I  understand 
what  you  mean — it's  work  for  a  living.  I've  no  busi 
ness  to  be  arriving  with  an  invited  guest,  but  it  seemed 
to  be  a  question  of  arriving  or  not  at  the  time  when  I 
was  due." 


IX 


VERRIAN  stared  at  her  now  from  a  visage  that  was  an 
entire  blank,  though  behind  it  conjecture  was  busy,  and 
he  was  asking  himself  whether  his  companion  was  some 
new  kind  of  hair  -  dresser,  or  uncommonly  cultivated 
manicure,  or  a  nursery  governess  obeying  a  hurry  call  to 
take  a  place  in  Mrs.  Westangle's  household,  or  some  sort 
of  amateur  housekeeper  arriving  to  supplant  a  profes 
sional.  But  he  said  nothing. 

Miss  Shirley  said,  with  a  distress  which  was  genuine, 
though  he  perceived  a  trace  of  amusement  in  it,  too, 
"  I  see  that  I  will  have  to  go  on." 

"  Oh,  do !"  he  made  out  to  utter. 

"  I  am  going  to  Mrs.  Westangle's  as  a  sort  of  mistress 
of  the  revels.  The  business  is  so  new  that  it  hasn't 
got  its  name  yet,  but  if  I  fail  it  won't  need  any.  I 
invented  it  on  a  hint  I  got  from  a  girl  who  undertakes 
the  floral  decorations  for  parties.  I  didn't  see  why 
some  one  shouldn't  furnish  suggestions  for  amusements, 
as  well  as  flowers.  I  was  always  rather  lucky  at  that 
in  my  own  f am — at  my  father's — "  She  pulled  herself 
sharply  up,  as  if  danger  lay  that  way.  "  I  got  an 
introduction  to  Mrs.  Westangle,  and  she's  to  let  m|e  try. 
I  am  going  to  her  simply  as  part  of  the  catering,  and 
I'm  not  to  have  any  recognition  in  the  hospitalities.  So 
it  wasn't  necessary  for  her  to  send  for  me  at  the  station, 
except  as  a  means  of  having  me  on  the  ground  in  good 
season.  I  have  to  thank  you  for  that,  and — I  thank 
you."  She  ended  in  a  sigh. 

39 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

"  It's  very  interesting,"  Verrian  said,  and  he  hoped 
he  was  not  saying  it  in  any  ignoble  way. 

He  was  very  presently  to  learn.  Round  a  turn  of  the 
road  there  came  a  lively  clacking  of  horses'  shoes  on 
the  hard  track,  with  the  muted  rumble  of  rubber-tired 
wheels,  and  Mrs.  Westangle's  victoria  dashed  into  view. 
The  coachman  had  made  a  signal  to  Verrian's  driver, 
and  the  vehicles  stopped  side  by  side.  The  footman 
instantly  came  to  the  door  of  the  carryall,  touching  his 
hat  to  Verrian. 

"  Going  to  Mrs.  Westangle's,  sir  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Mrs.  Westangle's  carriage.  Going  to  the  station 
for  you,  sir." 

"  Miss  Shirley,"  Yerrian  said,  "  will  you  change  ?" 

"  Oh  no,"  she  answered,  quickly,  "  it's  better  for  me 
to  go  on  as  I  am.  But  the  carriage  was  sent  for  you. 
You  must — " 

Verrian  interrupted  to  ask  the  footman,  "  How  far 
is  it  yet  to  Mrs.  Westangle's  ?" 

"  About  a  mile,  sir." 

"  I  think  I  won't  change  for  such  a  short  distance. 
I'll  keep  on  as  I  am,"  Verrian  said,  and  he  let  the  goat 
skin,  which  he  had  half  lifted  to  free  Miss  Shirley  for 
dismounting,  fall  back  again.  "  Go  ahead,  driver." 

She  had  been  making  several  gasping  efforts  at 
speech,  accompanied  with  entreating  and  protesting 
glances  at  Verrian  in  the  course  of  his  brief  colloquy 
with  the  footman.  Now,  as  the  carryall  lurched  for 
ward  again,  and  the  victoria  wheeled  and  passed  them 
on  its  way  back,  she  caught  her  handkerchief  to  her 
face,  and  to  Verrian's  dismay  sobbed  into  it.  He  let 
her  cry,  as  he  must,  in  the  distressful  silence  which  he 
could  not  be  the  first  to  break.  Besides,  he  did  not 
know  how  she  was  taking  it  all  till  she  suddenly  with- 

40 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

drew  her  handkerchief  and  pulled  down  her  veil.  Then 
she  spoke  three  heart-broken  words,  "  How  could  you !" 
and  he  divined  that  he  must  have  done  wrong. 

"  What  ought  I  to  have  done  ?"  he  asked,  with  sullen 
humility. 

"  You  ought  to  have  taken  the  victoria." 

"How  could  I?" 

"  You  ought  to  have  done  it." 

"  I  think  you  ought  to  have  done  it  yourself,  Miss 
Shirley,"  Verrlan  said,  feeling  like  the  worm  that 
turns.  He  added,  less  resentfully,  "  We  ought  both  to 
have  taken  it." 

"  No,  Mrs.  Westangle  might  have  felt,  very  properly, 
that  it  was  presumptuous  in  me,  whether  I  came  alone 
in  it  or  with  you.  Now  we  shall  arrive  together  in 
this  thing,  and  she  will  be  mortified  for  you  and  vexed 
with  me.  She  will  blame  me  for  it,  and  she  will  be 
right,  for  it  would  have  been  very  well  for  me  to 
drive  up  in  a  shabby  station  carryall;  but  an  invited 
guest — " 

"  No,  indeed,  she  shall  not  blame  you,  Miss  Shirley. 
I  will  make  a  point  of  taking  the  whole  responsibility. 
I  will  tell  her—" 

"  Mr.  Merriam !"  she  cried,  in  anguish.  "  Will  you 
please  do  nothing  of  the  kind  ?  Do  you  want  to  make 
bad  worse?  Leave  the  explaining  altogether  to  me, 
please.  Will  you  promise  that  ?" 

"  I  will  promise  that — or  anything — if  you  insist," 
Verrian  sulked. 

She  instantly  relented  a  little.  "  You  mustn't  think 
me  unreasonable.  But  I  was  determined  to  carry  my 
undertaking  through  on  business  principles,  and  you 
have  spoiled  my  chance — I  know  you  meant  it  kindly — 
or,  if  not  spoiled,  made  it  more  difficult.  Don't  think 
me  ungrateful.  Mr.  Merriam — " 

41 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

"  My  name  isn't  Merriam,"  he  resented,  at  last,  a 
misnomer  which  had  annoyed  him  from  the  first. 

"  Oh,  I  am  so  glad !  Don't  tell  me  what  it  is !"  she 
said,  giving  a  laugh  which  had  to  go  on  a  little  before 
he  recognized  the  hysterical  quality  in  it.  When  she 
could  check  it  she  explained :  "  Now  we  are  not  even 
acquainted,  and  I  can  thank  a  stranger  for  the  kindness 
you  have  shown  me.  I  am  truly  grateful.  Will  you  do 
me  another  favor  ?" 

"  Yes,"  Verrian  assented ;  but  he  thought  he  had  a 
right  to  ask,  as  though  he  had  not  promised,  "  What  is 
it?" 

"  Not  to  speak  of  me  to  Mrs.  Westangle  unless  she 
speaks  of  me  first." 

"  That's  simple.  I  don't  know  that  I  should  have  any 
right  to  speak  of  you." 

"  Oh  yes,  you  would.  She  will  expect  you,  perhaps, 
to  laugh  about  the  little  adventure,  and  I  would  rather 
she  began  the  laughing — you  have  been  so  good." 

"  All  right.  But  wouldn't  my  silence  make  it  rather 
more  awkward  ?" 

"  I  will  take  care  of  the  awkwardness,  thank  you. 
And  you  promise  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  promise." 

"  That  is  very  good  of  you."  She  put  her  hand  im 
pulsively  across  the  goat-skin,  and  gave  his,  with  which 
he  took  it  in  some  surprise,  a  quick  clasp.  Then  they 
were  both  silent,  and  they  got  out  of  the  carryall  un 
der  Mrs.  Westangle's  porte-cochere  without  having  ex 
changed  another  word.  Miss  Shirley  did  not  bow  to 
him  or  look  at  him  in  parting. 


VEEEIAN  kept  seeing  before  his  inner  eyes  the  thin 
face  of  the  girl,  dimmed  rather  than  lighted  with  her 
sick  eyes.  When  she  should  be  stronger,  there  might 
be  a  pale  flush  in  it,  like  sunset  on  snow,  but  Verrian 
had  to  imagine  that.  He  did  not  find  it  difficult  to  im 
agine  many  things  about  the  girl,  whom,  in  another 
mood,  a  more  judicial  mood,  he  might  have  accused  of 
provoking  him  to  imagine  them.  As  it  was,  he  could 
not  help  noting  to  that  second  self  which  we  all  have 
about  us,-  that  her  confidences,  such  as  they  were,  had 
perhaps  been  too  voluntary ;  certainly  they  had  not  been 
quite  obligatory,  and  they  could  not  be  quite  accounted 
for,  except  upon  the  theory  of  nerves  not  yet  perfectly 
under  her  control.  To  be  sure,  girls  said  all  sorts  of 
things  to  one,  ignorantly  and  innocently ;  but  she  did 
not  seem  the  kind  of  girl  who,  in  different  circum 
stances,  would  have  said  anything  that  she  did  not 
choose  or  that  she  did  not  mean  to  say.  She  had  been 
surprisingly  frank,  and  yet,  at  heart,  Verrian  would 
have  thought  she  was  a  very  reticent  person  or  a  secret 
person — that  is,  mentally  frank  and  sentimentally  se 
cret  ;  possibly  she  was  like  most  women  in  that.  What 
he  was  sure  of  was  that  the  visual  impression  of  her 
which  he  had  received  must  have  been  very  vivid  to 
last  so  long  in  his  consciousness ;  all  through  his  prepa 
rations  for  going  down  to  afternoon  tea  her  face  re 
mained  subjectively  before  him,  and  when  he  went 
down  and  found  himself  part  of  a  laughing  and  chat- 

43 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

tering  company  in  the  library  he  still  found  it,  in  his 
inner  sense,  here,  there,  and  yonder. 

He  was  aware  of  suffering  a  little  disappointment  in 
Mrs.  Westangle's  entire  failure  to  mention  Miss  Shir 
ley,  though  he  was  aware  that  his  disappointment  was 
altogether  unreasonable,  and  he  more  reasonably  de 
cided  that  if  she  knew  anything  of  his  arrival,  or  the 
form  of  it,  she  had  too  much  of  the  making  of  a 
grande  dame  to  be  recognizant  of  it.  He  did  not 
know  from  her  whether  she  had  meant  to  send  for 
him  at  the  station  or  not,  or  whether  she  had  sent  her 
carriage  back  for  him  when  he  did  not  arrive  in  it  at 
first.  Nothing  was  left  in  her  manner  of  such  slight 
specialization  as  she  had  thrown  into  it  when,  at  the 
Macroyds',  she  asked  him  down  to  her  house  party ;  she 
seemed,  if  there  were  any  difference,  to  have  acquired 
an  additional  ignorance  of  who  and  what  he  was,  though 
she  twittered  and  flittered  up  close  to  his  elbow,  after 
his  impersonal  welcome,  and  asked  him  if  she  might 
introduce  him  to  the  young  lady  who  was  pouring  tea 
for  her,  and  who,  after  the  brief  drama  necessary  for 
possessing  him  of  a  cup  of  it,  appeared  to  have  no  more 
use  for  him  than  Mrs.  Westangle  herself  had.  There 
were  more  young  men  than  young  women  in  the  room, 
but  he  imagined  the  usual  superabundance  of  girlhood 
temporarily  absent  for  repair  of  the  fatigues  of  the  jour 
ney.  Every  girl  in  the  room  had  at  least  one  man  talk 
ing  to  her,  and  the  girl  who  was  pouring  tea  had  one  on 
each  side  of  her  and  was  trying  to  fix  them  both  with  an 
eye  lifted  towards  each,  while  she  struggled  to  keep  her 
united  gaze  watchfully  upon  the  tea-urn  and  those  who 
came  up  with  cups  to  be  filled  or  refilled. 

Verrian  thought  his  fellow-guests  were  all  amiable 
enough  looking,  though  he  made  his  reflection  that  they 
did  not  look,  any  of  them,  as  if  they  would  set  the  Sound 

44 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

on  fire;  and  again  he  missed  the  companion  of  his  ar 
rival. 

After  he  had  got  his  cup  of  tea,  he  stood  sipping  it 
with  a  homeless  air  which  he  tried  to  conceal,  and  cast 
a  furtive  eye  round  the  room  till  it  rested  upon  the 
laughing  face  of  Miss  Macroyd.  A  young  man  was 
taking  away  her  teacup,  and  Verrian  at  once  went  up 
and  seized  his  place. 

"  How  did  you  get  here  ?"  she  asked,  rather  shame 
lessly,  since  she  had  kept  him  from  coming  in  the  vic 
toria,  but  amusingly,  since  she  seemed  to  see  it  as  a 
joke,  if  she  saw  it  at  all. 

"  I  walked,"  he  answered. 

"Truly?" 

"  No,  not  truly." 

"  But,  truly,  how  did  you  ?  Because  I  sent  the  car 
riage  back  for  you." 

"  That  was  very  thoughtful  of  you.  But  I  found  a 
delightful  public  vehicle  behind  the  station,  and  I 
came  in  that.  I'm  so  glad  to  know  that  it  wasn't  Mrs. 
Westangle  who  had  the  trouble  of  sending  the  carriage 
back  for  me." 

Miss  Macroyd  laughed  and  laughed  at  his  resent 
ment.  "  But  surely  you  met  it  on  the  way  ?  I  gave 
the  man  a  description  of  you.  Didn't  he  stop  for 
you?" 

"  Oh  yes,  but  I  was  too  proud  to  change  by  that  time. 
Or  perhaps  I  hated  the  trouble." 

Miss  Macroyd  laughed  the  more;  then  she  purpose 
ly  darkened  her  countenance  so  as  to  suit  it  to  her 
lugubrious  whisper,  "  How  did  she  get  here  ?" 

"What  she?" 

"  The  mysterious  fugitive.  Wasn't  she  coming  here, 
after  all  ?" 

"  After  all  your  trouble  in  supposing  so  ?"  Verrian 
45 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

reflected  a  moment,  and  then  he  said,  deliberately,  "  I 
don't  know." 

Miss  Macroyd  was  not  going  to  let  him  off  like  that. 
"  You  don't  know  how  she  came,  or  you  don't  know 
whether  she  was  coming  ?" 

"  I  didn't  say." 

Her  laugh  resounded  again.  "  Now  you  are  trying 
to  be  wicked,  and  that  is  very  wrong  for  a  novelist." 

"  But  what  object  could  I  have  in  concealing  the  fact 
from  you,  Miss  Macroyd?"  he  entreated,  with  mock 
earnestness. 

"  That  is  what  I  want  to  find  out." 

"  What  are  you  two  laughing  so  about  ?"  the  voice 
of  Mrs.  West  angle  twittered  at  Verrian's  elbow,  and, 
looking  down,  he  found  her  almost  touching  it.  She 
had  a  very  long,  narrow  neck,  and,  since  it  was  long  and 
narrow,  she  had  the  good  sense  not  to  palliate  the  fact 
or  try  to  dress  the  effect  of  it  out  of  sight.  She  took 
her  neck  in  both  hands,  as  it  were,  and  put  it  more  on 
show,  so  that  you  had  really  to  like  it.  Now  it  lifted 
her  face,  though  she  was  not  a  tall  person,  well  towards 
the  level  of  his ;  to  be  sure,  he  was  himself  only  of  the 
middle  height  of  men,  though  an  aquiline  profile  helped 
him  up. 

He  stirred  the  tea  which  he  had  ceased  to  drink,  and 
said,  "  I  wasn't  *  laughing  so  about,'  Mrs.  Westangle. 
It  was  Miss  Macroyd." 

"  And  I  was  laughing  so  about  a  mysterious  stranger 
that  came  up  on  the  train  with  us  and  got  out  at  your 
station." 

"  And  I  was  trying  to  make  out  what  was  so  funny 
in  a  mysterious  stranger,  or  even  in  her  getting  out  at 
your  station." 

Mrs.  Westangle  was  not  interested  in  the  case,  or 
else  she  failed  to  seize  the  joke.  At  any  rate,  she  turned 

46 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

from  them  without  further  question  and  went  away  to 
another  part  of  the  room,  where  she  semi-attached  her 
self  in  like  manner  to  another  couple,  and  again  left  it 
for  still  another.  This  was  possibly  her  idea  of  look 
ing  after  her  guests;  but  when  she  had  looked  after 
them  a  little  longer  in  that  way  she  left  the  room  and 
let  them  look  after  themselves  till  dinner. 

"  Come,  Mr.  Verrian,"  Miss  Macroyd  resumed, 
"  what  is  the  secret  ?  I'll  never  tell  if  you  tell  me." 

"  You  won't  if  I  don't." 

"  Now  you  are  becoming  merely  trivial.  You  are 
ceasing  even  to  be  provoking."  Miss  Macroyd,  in  token 
of  her  displeasure,  laughed  no  longer. 

"  Am  I  ?"  he  questioned,  thoughtfully.  "  Well,  then, 
I  am  tempted  to  act  upon  impulse." 

"  Oh,  do  act  upon  impulse  for  once,"  she  urged.  I'm 
sure  you'll  enjoy  it." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  I'm  never  impulsive  ?" 

"  I  don't  think  you  look  it." 

"  If  you  had  seen  me  an  hour  ago  you  would  have 
said  I  was  very  impulsive.  I  think  I  may  have  ex 
hausted  myself  in  that  direction,  however.  I  feel  the 
impulse  failing  me  now." 


XI 


His  impulse  really  had  failed  him.  It  had  been  to 
tell  Miss  Macroyd  about  his  adventure  and  frankly 
trust  her  with  it.  He  had  liked  her  at  several  former 
meetings  rather  increasingly,  because  she  had  seemed 
open  and  honest  beyond  the  most  of  women,  but  her  pig 
gish  behavior  at  the  station  had  been  rather  too  open  and 
honest,  and  the  sense  of  this  now  opportunely  inter 
vened  between  him  and  the  folly  he  was  about  to  com 
mit.  Besides,  he  had  no  right  to  give  Miss  Shirley's 
part  in  his  adventure  away,  and,  since  the  affair  was 
more  vitally  hers  than  his,  to  take  it  at  all  out  of  her 
hands.  The  early  -  falling  dusk  had  favored  an  un 
noticed  advent  for  them,  and  there  were  other  chances 
that  had  helped  keep  unknown  their  arrival  together  at 
Mrs.  Westangle's  in  that  squalid  carryall,  such  as 
Miss  Shirley's  having  managed  instantly  to  slip  in-doors 
before  the  man  came  out  for  ^7rerrian>s  suit-case,  and  of 
her  having  got  to  her  own  appointed  place  long  before 
there  was  any  descent  of  the  company  to  the  after 
noon  tea. 

It  was  not  for  him  now  to  undo  all  that  and  begin 
the  laughing  at  the  affair,  which  she  had  pathetically 
intimated  that  she  would  rather  some  one  else  should 
begin.  He  recoiled  from  his  imprudence  with  a  shock, 
but  he  had  the  pleasure  of  having  mystified  Miss 
Macroyd.  He  felt  dismissal  in  the  roving  eye  which 
she  cast  from  him  round  the  room,  and  he  willingly 
let  another  young  man  replace  him  at  her  side. 

48 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

Yet  he  was  not  altogether  satisfied.  A  certain  meaner 
self  that  there  was  in  him  was  not  pleased  with  his 
relegation  even  merely  in  his  own  consciousness  to  the 
championship  of  a  girl  who  was  going  to  make  her 
living  in  a  sort  of  menial  way.  It  had  better  be  owned 
for  him  that,  in  his  visions  of  literary  glory,  he  had 
figured  in  social  triumphs  which,  though  vague,  were 
resplendent  with  the  glitter  of  smart  circles.  He  had 
been  so  ignorant  of  such  circles  as  to  suppose  they  would 
have  some  use  for  him  as  a  brilliant  young  author; 
and  though  he  was  outwearing  this  illusion,  he  still 
would  not  have  liked  a  girl  like  Julia  Macroyd,  whose 
family,  if  not  smart,  was  at  least  chic,  to  know  that  he 
had  come  to  the  house  with  a  professional  mistress  of 
the  revels,  until  Miss  Shirley  should  have  approved 
herself  chic,  too.  The  notion  of  such  an  employment  as 
hers  was  in  itself  chic,  but  the  girl  was  merely  a  paid 
part  of  the  entertainment,  as  yet,  and  had  not  risen 
above  the  hireling  status.  If  she  had  sunk  to  that  level 
from  a  higher  rank  it  would  be  all  right,  but  there  was 
no  evidence  that  she  had  ever  been  smart.  Verrian 
would,  therefore,  rather  not  be  mixed  up  with  her — at 
any  rate,  in  the  imagination  of  a  girl  like  Julia  Mac 
royd;  and  as  he  left  her  side  he  drew  a  long  breath  of 
relief  and  went  and  put  down  his  teacup  where  he  had 
got  it. 

By  this  time  the  girl  who  was  "  pouring  "  had  ex 
hausted  one  of  the  two  original  guards  on  whom  she  had 
been  dividing  her  vision,  and  Verrian  made  a  pre 
tence,  which  she  favored,  that  he  had  come  up  to  push 
the  man  away.  The  man  gracefully  submitted  to  be 
dislodged,  and  Verrian  remained  in  the  enjoyment 
of  one  of  the  girl's  distorted  eyes  till,  yet  another  man 
coming  up,  she  abruptly  got  rid  of  Verrian  by  pre 
senting  him  to  yet  another  girl.  In  such  manoeuvres 

49 


FENNEL     AND     RTJE 

the  hour  of  afternoon  tea  will  pass ;  and  the  time  really 
wore  on  till  it  was  time  to  dress  for  dinner. 

By  the  time  that  the  guests  came  down  to  dinner  they 
were  all  able  to  participate  in  the  exchange  of  the 
discovery  which  each  had  made,  that  it  was  snowing  out 
doors,  and  they  kept  this  going  till  one  girl  had  the 
good-luck  to  say,  "  I  don't  see  anything  so  astonishing 
in  that  at  this  time  of  year.  Now,  if  it  was  snowing  in 
door  s,  it  would  be  different." 

This  relieved  the  tension  in  a  general  laugh,  and  a 
young  man  tried  to  contribute  further  to  the  gayety 
by  declaring  that  it  would  not  be  surprising  to  have  it 
snow  in-doors.  He  had  once  seen  the  thing  done  in 
a  crowded  hall,  one  night,  when  somebody  put  up  a 
window,  and  the  freezing  current  of  air  congealed  the 
respiration  of  the  crowd,  which  came  down  in  a  light 
fall  of  snow-flakes.  He  owned  that  it  was  in  Boston. 

"  Oh,  that  excuses  it,  then,"  Miss  Macroyd  said.  But 
she  lost  the  laugh  which  was  her  due  in  the  rush  which 
some  of  the  others  made  to  open  a  window  and  see 
whether  it  could  be  made  to  snow  in-doors  there. 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  crowded  enough  here,"  the  young  man 
explained  who  had  alleged  the  scientific  marvel. 

"  And  it  isn't  Boston,"  Miss  Macroyd  tried  again  on 
the  same  string,  and  this  time  she  got  her  laugh. 

The  girl  who  had  first  spoken  remained,  at  the  risk 
of  pneumonia,  with  her  arm  prettily  lifted  against  the 
open  sash,  for  a  moment  peering  out,  and  then  reported, 
in  dashing  it  down  with  a  shiver,  "  It  seems  to  be  a 
very  soft  snow." 

"  Then  it  will  be  rain  by  morning,"  another  pre 
dicted,  and  the  girl  tried  hard  to  think  of  something 
to  say  in  support  of  the  hit  she  had  made  already.  But 
she  could  not,  and  was  silent  almost  through  the  whole 
first  course  at  dinner. 

50 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

In  spite  of  its  being  a  soft  snow,  it  continued  to  fall 
as  snow  and  not  as  rain.  It  lent  the  charm  of  stormy 
cold  without  to  the  brightness  and  warmth  within. 
Much  later,  when  between  waltzes  some  of  the  dancers 
went  out  on  the  verandas  for  a  breath  of  air,  they  came 
back  reporting  that  the  wind  was  rising  and  the  snow 
was  drifting. 

Upon  the  whole,  the  snow  was  a  great  success,  and  her 
guests  congratulated  Mrs.  Westangle  on  having  thought 
to  have  it.  The  felicitations  included  recognition  of  the 
originality  of  her  whole  scheme.  She  had  downed  the 
hoary  superstition  that  people  had  too  much  of  a  good 
time  on  Christmas  to  want  any  good  time  at  all  in  the 
week  following ;  and  in  acting  upon  the  well-known  fact 
that  you  never  wanted  a  holiday  so  much  as  the  day 
after  you  had  one,  she  had  made  a  movement  of  the 
highest  social  importance.  These  were  the  ideas  which 
Verrian  and  the  young  man  of  the  in-doors  snow-storm 
urged  upon  her;  his  name  was  Bushwick,  and  he  and 
Verrian  found  that  they  were  very  good-fellows  after 
they  had  rather  supposed  the  contrary. 

Mrs.  Westangle  received  their  ideas  with  the  twit 
tering  reticence  that  deceived  so  many  people  when  they 
supposed  she  knew  what  they  were  talking  about. 


XII 


AT  breakfast,  where  the  guests  were  reasonably 
punctual,  they  were  all  able  to  observe,  in  the  rapid 
succession  in  which  they  descended  from  their  rooms, 
that  it  had  stopped  snowing  and  the  sun  was  shining 
brilliantly. 

"  There  isn't  enough  for  sleighing,"  Mrs.  Westangle 
proclaimed  from  the  head  of  the  table  in  her  high  twit 
ter,  "  and  there  isn't  any  coasting  here  in  this  flat  coun 
try  for  miles." 

"  Then  what  are  we  going  to  do  with  it  ?"  one  of  the 
young  ladies  humorously  pouted. 

"  That's  what  I  was  going  to  suggest,"  Mrs.  West- 
angle  replied.  She  pronounced  it  sujjest,  but  no  one 
felt  that  it  mattered.  "  And,  of  course,"  she  con 
tinued,  "  you  needn't  any  of  you  do  it  if  you  don't 
like." 

"  We'll  all  do  it,  Mrs.  Westangle,"  Bushwick  said. 
"  We  are  unanimous  in  that." 

"  Perhaps  you'll  think  it  rather  funny — odd,"  she 
said. 

"  The  odder  the  better,  I  think,"  Verrian  ventured, 
and  another  man  declared  that  nothing  Mrs.  Westangle 
would  do  was  odd,  though  everything  was  original. 

"  Well,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  too  original," 
she  returned.  Then  she  turned  her  head  aside  and 
looked  down  at  something  beside  her  plate  and  said, 
without  lifting  her  eyes,  "  You  know  that  in  the  Middle 
Ages  there  used  to  be  flower-fights  among  the  young 

52 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

nobility  in  Italy.     The  women  held  a  tower,  and  the 
men  attacked  it  with  roses  and  flowers  generally." 

"  Why,  is  this  a  speech  ?"  Miss  Macroyd  interrupted. 

"  A  speech  from  the  throne,  yes,"  Bushwick  solemnly 
corrected  her.  "  And  she's  got  it  written  down,  like  a 
queen — haven't  you,  Mrs.  Westangle  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  thought  it  would  be  more  respectful." 

"  She  coming  out,"  Eushwick  said  to  Verrian  across 
the  table. 

"  And  if  I  got  mixed  up  I  could  go  back  and  straight 
en  it,"  the  hostess  declared,  with  a  good  -  humored 
candor  that  took  the  general  fancy,  "  and  you  could 
understand  without  so  much  explaining.  We  haven't 
got  flowers  enough  at  this  season,"  she  went  on,  looking 
down  again  at  the  paper  beside  her  plate,  "  but  we  hap 
pen  to  have  plenty  of  snowballs,  and  the  notion  is  to 
have  the  women  occupy  a  snow  tower  and  the  men  at 
tack  them  with  snowballs." 

"  Why,"  Bushwick  said,  "  this  is  the  snow-fort  busi 
ness  of  our  boyhood!  Let's  go  out  and  fortify  the 
ladies  at  once."  He  appealed  to  Verrian  and  made  a 
feint  of  pushing  his  chair  back.  "  May  we  use  water- 
soaked  snowballs,  or  must  they  all  be  soft  and  harm 
less?"  he  asked  of  Mrs.  Westangle,  who  was  now  the 
centre  of  a  storm,  of  applause  and  question  from  the 
whole  table. 

She  kept  her  head  and  referred  again  to  her  paper. 
"  The  missiles  of  the  assailants  are  to  be  very  soft 
snowballs,  hardly  more  than  mere  clots,  so  that  nobody 
can  be  hurt  in  the  assault,  but  the  defenders  may  repel 
the  assailants  with  harder  snowballs." 

"  Oh,"  Miss  Macroyd  protested,  "  this  is  consulting 
the  weakness  of  our  sex." 

"  In  the  fury  of  the  onset  we'll  forget  it,"  Verrian 
reassured  her. 

53 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

"  Do  you  think  you  really  will,  Mr.  Verrian  ?"  she 
asked.  "  What  is  all  our  athletic  training  to  go  for  if 
you  do?" 

Mrs.  Westangle  read  on : 

"  The  terms  of  capitulation  can  be  arranged  on  the 
ground,  whether  the  castle  is  carried  or  the  assailing 
party  are  made  prisoners  by  its  defenders." 

"  Hopeless  captivity  in  either  case !"  Bushwick  la 
mented. 

"  Isn't  it  rather  academic  ?"  Miss  Macroyd  asked  of 
Verrian,  in  a  low  voice. 

"  I'm  afraid,  rather,"  he  owned. 

"  But  why  are  you  so  serious  ?"  she  pursued. 

"  Am  I  serious  ?"  he  retorted,  with  a  trace  of  exas 
peration  ;  and  she  laughed. 

Their  parley  was  quite  lost  in  the  clamor  which  raged 
up  and  down  the  table  till  Mrs.  Westangle  ended  it 
by  saying,  "  There's  no  obligation  on  any  one  to  take 
part  in  the  hostilities.  There  won't  be  any  conscrip 
tion;  it's  a  free  fight  that  will  be  open  to  everybody." 
She  folded  the  paper  she  had  been  reading  from  and 
put  it  in  her  lap,  in  default  of  a  pocket.  She  went  on 
impromptu : 

"  You  needn't  trouble  about  building  the  fort,  Mr. 
Bushwick.  I've  had  the  farmer  and  his  men  working 
at  the  castle  since  daybreak,  and  the  ladies  will  find 
it  all  ready  for  them,  when  they're  ready  to  defend 
it,  down  in  the  meadow  beyond  the  edge  of  the  birch- 
lot.  The  battle  won't  begin  till  eleven  o'clock." 

She  rose,  and  the  clamor  rose  again  with  her,  and  her 
guests  crushed  about  her,  demanding  to  be  allowed  at 
least  to  go  and  look  at  the  castle  immediately. 

One  of  the  men's  voices  asked,  "  May  I  be  one  of  the 
defenders,  Mrs.  Westangle  ?  I  want  to  be  on  the  win 
ning  side,  sure." 

54 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  Oh,  is  this  going  to  be  a  circus  chariot-race  ?"  an 
other  lamented. 

"  No,  indeed,"  a  girl  cried,  "  it's  to  be  the  real  thing." 

It  fell  to  Verrian,  in  the  assortment  of  couples  in 
which  Mrs.  Westangle's  guests  sallied  out  to  view  the 
proposed  scene  of  action,  to  find  himself,  not  too  willing 
ly,  at  Miss  Macroyd's  side.  In  his  heart  and  in  his 
mind  he  was  defending  the  amusement  which  he  instant 
ly  divined  as  no  invention  of  Mrs.  Westangle's,  and 
both  his  heart  and  his  mind  misgave  him  about  this 
first  essay  of  Miss  Shirley  in  her  new  enterprise.  It 
was,  as  Miss  Macroyd  had  suggested,  academic,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  had  a  danger  in  it  of  being  tom- 
boyish.  Golf,  tennis,  riding,  boating,  swimming — all 
the  vigorous  sports  in  which  women  now  excel — were 
boldly  athletic,  and  yet  you  could  not  feel  quite  that 
they  were  tomboyish.  Was  it  because  the  bent  of 
Miss  Shirley  was  so  academic  that  she  was  perilling 
upon  tomboyishness  without  knowing  it  in  this  primal 
inspiration  of  hers  ?  Inwardly  he  resented  the  word 
academic,  although  outwardly  he  had  assented  to  it 
when  Miss  Macroyd  proposed  it.  To  be  academic  would 
be  even  more  fatal  to  Miss  Shirley's  ambition  than  to 
be  tomboyish,  and  he  thought  with  pathos  of  that  touch 
about  the  Italian  nobility  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  how 
little  it  could  have  moved  the  tough  fancies  of  that 
crowd  of  well-groomed  young  people  at  the  breakfast- 
table  when  Mrs.  Westangle  brought  it  out  with  her 
ignorant  acceptance  of  it  as  a  social  force.  After  all, 
Miss  Macroyd  was  about  the  only  one  who  could  have 
felt  it  in  the  way  it  was  meant,  and  she  had  chosen  to 
smile  at  it.  He  wondered  if  possibly  she  could  feel  the 
secondary  pathos  of  it  as  he  did.  But  to  make  talk 
with  her  he  merely  asked : 

"  Do  you  intend  to  take  part  in  the  fray  ?" 

55 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  Not  unless  I  can  be  one  of  the  reserve  corps  that 
won't  need  to  be  brought  up  till  it's  all  over.  I've  no 
idea  of  getting  my  hair  down." 

"  Ah,"  he  sighed,  "  you  think  it's  going  to  be 
rude." 

"  That  is  one  of  the  chances.  But  you  seem  to  be 
suffering  about  it,  Mr.  Verrian!"  she  said,  and,  of 
course,  she  laughed. 

"  Who  ?  I  ?"  he  returned,  in  the  temptation  to  deny 
it.  But  he  resisted.  "  I  always  suffer  when  there's  any 
thing  silly  happening,  as  if  I  were  doing  it  myself. 
Don't  you  ?" 

"  No,  thank  you,  I  believe  not.  But  perhaps  you 
are  doing  this?  One  can't  suppose  Mrs.  Westangle 
imagined  it." 

"  No,  I  can't  plead  guilty.  But  why  isn't  it  predi- 
cable  of  Mrs.  Westangle?" 

"  You  mustn't  ask  too  much  of  me,  Mr.  Verrian. 
Somehow,  I  won't  say  how,  it's  been  imagined  for  her. 
She's  heard  of  its  being  done  somewhere.  It  can't  be 
supposed  she's  read  of  it,  anywhere." 

"  No,  I  dare  say  not." 

Miss  Macroyd  came  out  with  her  laugh.  "  I  should 
like  to  know  what  she  makes  of  you,  Mr.  Verrian,  when 
she  is  alone  with  herself.  She  must  have  looked  you 
up  and  authenticated  you  in  her  own  way,  but  it  would 
be  as  far  from  your  way  as  —  well,  say  —  the  Milky 
Way." 

"  You  don't  think  she  asked  me  because  she  met  me 
at  your  house  ?" 

"  No,  that  wouldn't  be  enough,  from  her  point  of 
view.  She  means  to  go  much  further  than  we've  ever 
got." 

"  Then  a  year  from  now  she  wouldn't  ask  me  ?" 

"  It  depends  upon  who  asks  you  in  the  mean  time. 

56 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

You  might  get  to  be  a  fad,  and  then  she  would  feel 
that  she  would  have  to  have  you." 

"  You're  not  nattering  me  ?" 

"  Do  you  find  it  flattering  ?" 

"  It  isn't  exactly  my  idea  of  the  reward  I've  been 
working  for.  What  shall  I  do  to  be  a  fad  ?" 

"  Well,  rather  degrading  stunts,  if  you  mean  in  the 
smart  set.  Jump  about  on  all  fours  and  pick  up  a 
woman's  umbrella  with  your  teeth,  and  bark.  Anything 
else  would  be  easier  for  you  among  chic  people,  where 
your  brilliancy  would  count." 

"Brilliancy?    Oh,  thank  you!    Goon." 

"  Now,  a  girl — if  you  were  a  girl — " 

"  Oh  yes,  if  I  were  a  girl !  That  will  be  so  much 
more  interesting." 

"  A  girl,"  Miss  Macroyd  continued,  "  might  do  it  by 
posing  effectively  for  amateur  photography.  Or  do 
ing  something  original  in  dramatics  or  pantomimics  or 
recitation — but  very  original,  because  chic  people  are 
critical.  Or  if  she  had  a  gift  for  getting  up  things 
that  would  show  other  girls  off;  or  suggesting  amuse 
ments;  but  that  would  be  rather  in  the  line  of  swell 
people,  who  are  not  good  at  getting  up  things  and  are 
glad  of  help." 

"  I  see,  I  see !"  Verrian  said,  eagerly.  But  he  walked 
along  looking  down  at  the  snow,  and  not  meeting  the 
laughing  glance  that  Miss  Macroyd  cast  at  his  face. 
"  Well  ?" 

"  I  believe  that's  all,"  she  said,  sharply.  She  added, 
less  sharply :  "  She  couldn't  afford  to  fail,  though,  at 
any  point.  The  fad  that  fails  is  extinguished  forever. 
Will  these  simple  facts  do  for  fiction?  Or  is  it  for 
somebody  in  real  life  you're  asking,  Mr.  Yerrian  ?" 

"  Oh,  for  fiction.  And  thank  you  very  much.  Oh, 
that's  rather  pretty !" 

57 


XIII 

THEY  had  come  into  the  meadow  where  the  snow 
battle  was  to  be,  and  on  its  slope,  against  the  dark  weft 
of  the  young  birch-trees,  there  was  a  mimic  castle  out 
lined  in  the  masonry  of  white  blocks  quarried  from  the 
drifts  and  built  up  in  courses  like  rough  blocks  of 
marble.  A  decoration  of  green  from  the  pines  that 
mixed  with  the  birches  had  been  suggested  rather  than 
executed,  and  was  perhaps  the  more  effective  for  its 
sketchiness. 

"  Yes,  it's  really  beautiful,"  Miss  Macroyd  owned, 
and  though  she  did  not  join  her  cries  to  those  of  the 
other  girls,  who  stood  scattered  about  admiring  it,  and 
laughing  and  chattering  with  the  men  whose  applause, 
of  course,  took  the  jocose  form,  there  was  no  doubt  but 
she  admired  it.  "  What  I  can't  understand  is  how  Mrs. 
Westangle  got  the  notion  of  this.  There's  the  soprano 
note  in  it,  and  some  woman  must  have  given  it  to  her." 

"  Not  contralto,  possibly  ?"  Verrian  asked. 

"  I  insist  upon  the  soprano,"  she  said. 

But  he  did  not  notice  what  she  said.  His  eyes  were 
following  a  figure  which  seemed  to  be  escaping  up 
through  the  birches  behind  the  snow  castle  and  plough 
ing  its  way  through  the  drifts ;  in  front  of  the  structure 
they  had  been  levelled  to  make  an  easier  battle-field. 
He  knew  that  it  was  Miss  Shirley,  and  he  inferred  that 
she  had  been  in  the  castle  directing  the  farm-hands 
building  it,  and  now,  being  caught  by  the  premature 
arrival  of  the  contesting  forces,  had  fled  before  them 

58 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

and  left  her  subordinates  to  finish  the  work.  He  felt, 
with  a  throe  of  helpless  sympathy,  that  she  was  under 
taking  too  much.  It  was  hazardous  enough  to  attempt 
the  practice  of  her  novel  profession  under  the  best  of 
circumstances,  but  to  keep  herself  in  abeyance  so  far 
as  not  to  be  known  at  all  in  it,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  give  way  to  her  interest  in  it  to  the  extent  of  coming 
out,  with  her  infirmly  established  health,  into  that 
wintry  weather,  and  superintending  the  preparations 
for  the  first  folly  she  had  planned,  was  a  risk  altogether 
too  great  for  her. 

"  Who  in  the  world,"  Miss  Macroyd  suddenly  de 
manded,  "  is  the  person  floundering  about  in  the  birch 
woods  ?" 

"  Perhaps  the  soprano,"  Verrian  returned,  hardily. 

Bushwick  detached  himself  from  a  group  of  girls 
near  by  and  intercepted  any  response  from  Miss  Mac 
royd  to  Verrian  by  calling  to  her  before  he  came  up, 
"  Are  you  going  to  be  one  of  the  enemy,  Miss  Mac 
royd?" 

"  No,  I  think  I  will  be  neutral."  She  added,  "  Is 
there  going  to  be  any  such  thing  as  an  umpire  ?" 

"  We  hadn't  thought  of  that.  There  could  be.  The 
office  could  be  created;  but,  you  know,  it's  the  post  of 
danger." 

Verrian  joined  the  group  that  Bushwick  had  left. 
He  found  a  great  scepticism  as  to  the  combat,  mixed 
with  some  admiration  for  the  castle,  and  he  set  himself 
to  contest  the  prevalent  feeling.  What  was  the  matter 
with  a  snow-fight?  he  demanded.  It  would  be  great 
fun.  Decidedly  he  was  going  in  for  it.  He  revived  the 
drooping  sentiment  in  its  favor,  and  then,  flown  with  his 
success,  he  went  from  group  to  group  and  couple  to 
couple,  and  animated  all  with  his  zeal,  which  came,  he 
hardly  knew  whence;  what  he  pretended  to  the  others 

59 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

was  that  they  were  rather  bound  not  to  let  Mrs.  West- 
angle's  scheme  fall  through.  Their  doubts  vanished 
before  him,  and  the  terms  of  the  battle  were  quickly 
arranged.  He  said  he  had  read  of  one  of  those  mediaeval 
flower-fights,  and  he  could  tell  them  how  that  was  done. 
Where  it  would  not  fit  into  the  snow-fight,  they  could 
trust  to  inspiration;  every  real  battle  was  the  effect  of 
inspiration. 

He  came  out,  and  some  of  the  young  women  and  most 
of  the  young  men,  who  had  dimly  known  of  him  as 
a  sort  of  celebrity,  and  suspected  him  of  being  a  prig, 
were  reconciled,  and  accepted  him  for  a  nice  fellow,  and 
became  of  his  opinion  as  to  the  details  of  the  amusement 
before  them. 

It  was  not  very  Homeric,  when  it  came  off,  or  very 
medieval,  but  it  was  really  lots  of  fun,  or  far  more 
fun  than  one  would  have  thought.  The  storming  of  the 
castle  was  very  sincere,  and  the  fortress  was  honestly 
defended.  Miss  Macroyd  was  made  umpire,  as  she 
wished,  and  provided  with  a  large  snowball  to  sit  on 
at  a  safe  distance;  as  she  was  chosen  by  the  men,  the 
girls  wanted  to  have  an  umpire  of  their  own,  who  would 
be  really  fair,  and  they  voted  Verrian  into  the  office. 
But  he  refused,  partly  because  he  did  not  care  about 
being  paired  off  with  Miss  Macroyd  so  conspicuous 
ly,  and  partly  because  he  wished  to  help  the  fight 
along. 

Attacks  were  made  and  repelled,  and  there  were  feats 
of  individual  and  collective  daring  on  the  side  of  the 
defenders  which  were  none  the  less  daring  because  the 
assailants  stopped  to  cheer  them,  and  to  disable  them 
selves  by  laughing  at  the  fury  of  the  foe.  A  detachment 
of  the  young  men  at  last  stormed  the  castle  and  so 
weakened  its  walls  that  they  toppled  inward;  then  the 
defenders,  to  save  themselves  from  being  buried  under 

60 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

the  avalanche,  swarmed  out  into  the  open  and  made  the 
entire  force  of  the  enemy  prisoners. 

The  men  pretended  that  this  was  what  might  have 
been  expected  from  the  beginning,  but  by  this  time  the 
Berserker  madness  had  possessed  Miss  Macroyd,  too; 
she  left  her  throne  of  snow  and  came  forward  shouting 
that  it  had  been  perfectly  fair,  and  that  the  men  had 
been  really  beaten,  and  they  had  no  right  to  pretend 
that  they  had  given  themselves  up  purposely.  The  sex- 
partisanship,  which  is  such  a  droll  fact  in  women  when 
there  is  any  question  of  their  general  opposition  to  men, 
possessed  them  all,  and  they  stood  as  one  girl  for  the 
reality  of  their  triumph.  This  did  not  prevent  them 
from  declaring  that  the  men  had  behaved  with  out 
rageous  unfairness,  and  that  the  only  one  who  fought 
with  absolute  sincerity  from  first  to  last  was  Mr. 
Verrian. 

Neither  their  unity  of  conviction  concerning  the  gen 
eral  fact  nor  the  surprising  deduction  from  it  in  Yer- 
rian's  case  operated  to  make  them  refuse  the  help  of 
their  captives  in  getting  home.  When  they  had  bound 
up  their  tumbled  hair,  in  some  cases,  and  repaired  the 
ravages  of  war  among  their  feathers  and  furs  and 
draperies,  in  other  cases,  they  accepted  the  hands  of  the 
late  enemy  at  difficult  points  of  the  path.  But  they  ran 
forward  when  they  neared  the  house,  and  they  were 
prompt  to  scream  upon  Mrs.  Westangle  that  there  never 
had  been  such  a  success  or  such  fun,  and  that  they  were 
almost  dead,  and  soon  as  they  had  something  to  eat  they 
were  going  to  bed  and  never  going  to  get  up  again. 

In  the  details  which  they  were  able  to  give  at  lunch 
eon,  they  did  justice  to  Verrian's  noble  part  in  the 
whole  affair,  which  had  saved  the  day,  not  only  in 
keeping  them  up  to  the  work  when  they  had  got  think 
ing  it  couldn't  be  carried  through,  but  in  giving  the 

61 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

combat  a  validity  which  it  would  not  have  had  without 
him.  They  had  to  thank  him,  next  to  Mrs.  Westangle 
herself,  whom  they  praised  beyond  any  articulate  ex 
pression,  for  thinking  up  such  a  delightful  thing.  They 
wondered  how  she  could  ever  have  thought  of  it — such 
a  simple  thing  too ;  and  they  were  sure  that  when  peo 
ple  heard  of  it  they  would  all  be  wanting  to  have  snow 
battles. 

Mrs.  Westangle  took  her  praises  as  passively,  if  not 
as  modestly,  as  Verrian  received  his.  She  made  no 
show  of  disclaiming  them,  but  she  had  the  art,  invalu 
able  in  a  woman  who  meant  to  go  far  in  the  line  she  had 
chosen,  of  not  seeming  to  have  done  anything,  or  of 
not  caring  whether  people  liked  it  or  not.  Verrian 
asked  himself,  as  he  watched  her  twittering  back  at 
those  girls,  and  shedding  equally  their  thanks  and 
praises  from  her  impermeable  plumage,  how  she  would 
have  behaved  if  Miss  Shirley's  attempt  had  been  an 
entire  failure.  He  decided  that  she  would  have  ignored 
the  failure  with  the  same  impersonality  as  that  with 
which  she  now  ignored  the  success.  It  appeared  that  in 
one  point  he  did  her  injustice,  for  when  he  went  up  to 
dress  for  dinner  after  the  long  stroll  he  took  towards 
night  he  found  a  note  under  his  door,  by  which  he  must 
infer  that  Mrs.  Westangle  had  not  kept  the  real  facts 
of  her  triumph  from  the  mistress  of  the  revels. 

"  DEAR  MR.  VERRIAN, — I  am  not  likely  to  see  you, 
but  I  must  thank  you.  M.  SHIRLEY. 

"  P.  S.    Don't  try  to  answer,  please." 

Verrian  liked  the  note,  he  even  liked  the  impulse 
which  had  dictated  it,  and  he  understood  the  impulse; 
but  he  did  not  like  getting  the  note.  If  Miss  Shirley 
meant  business  in  taking  up  the  line  of  life  she  had 

62 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

professed  to  have  entered  upon  seriously,  she  had  better, 
in  the  case  of  a  young  man  whose  acquaintance  she  had 
chanced  to  make,  let  her  gratitude  wait.  But  when 
did  a  woman  ever  mean  business,  except  in  the  one  great 
business  ? 


XIV 

To  have  got  that  sillily  superfluous  note  to  Verrian 
without  any  one's  knowing  besides,  Miss  Shirley 
must  have  stolen  to  his  door  herself  and  slipped  it 
under.  In  order  to  do  this  unsuspected  and  unseen, 
she  must  have  found  out  in  some  sort  that  would  not 
give  her  away  which  his  room  was,  and  then  watched 
her  chance.  It  all  argued  a  pervasiveness  in  her,  after 
such  a  brief  sojourn  in  the  house,  and  a  mastery  of 
finesse  that  he  did  not  like,  though,  he  reflected,  he  was 
not  authorized  to  like  or  dislike  anything  about  her. 
He  was  thirty-seven  years  old,  and  he  had  not  lived 
through  that  time,  with  his  mother  at  his  elbow  to 
suggest  inferences  from  facts,  without  being  versed  in 
wiles  which,  even  when  they  were  honest,  were  always 
wiles,  and  in  lures  which,  when  they  were  of  the  most 
gossamer  tenuity,  were  yet  of  texture  close  enough  to 
make  the  man  who  blundered  through  them  aware  that 
they  had  been  thrown  across  his  path.  He  understood, 
of  course,  that  they  were  sometimes  helplessly  thrown 
across  it,  and  were  mere  expressions  of  abstract  woman 
with  relation  to  abstract  man,  but  that  did  not  change 
their  nature.  He  did  not  abhor  them,  but  he  believed 
he  knew  them,  and  he  believed  now  that  he  detected 
one  of  them  in  Miss  Shirley's  note.  Of  course,  one 
could  take  another  view  of  it.  One  could  say  to  one's 
self  that  she  was  really  so  fervently  grateful  that  she 
could  not  trust  some  accident  to  bring  them  together  in 
a  place  where  she  was  merely  a  part  of  the  catering, 

64 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

as  she  said,  and  he  was  a  guest,  and  that  she  was  ex 
cusable,  or  at  least  mercifully  explicable,  in  her  wish 
to  have  him  know  that  she  appreciated  his  goodness. 
Verrian  had  been  very  good,  he  knew  that;  he  had 
saved  the  day  for  the  poor  thing  when  it  was  in  danger 
of  the  dreariest  kind  of  slump.  She  was  a  poor  thing, 
as  any  woman  was  who  had  to  make  her  own  way,  and 
she  had  been  sick  and  was  charming.  Besides,  she 
had  found  out  his  name  and  had  probably  recognized 
a  quality  of  celebrity  in  it,  unknown  to  the  other  young 
people  with  whom  he  found  himself  so  strangely  as 
sorted  under  Mrs.  Westangle's  roof. 

In  the  end,  and  upon  the  whole,  Verrian  would  rather 
have  liked,  if  the  thing  could  have  been  made  to  happen, 
meeting  Miss  Shirley  long  enough  to  disclaim  meriting 
her  thanks,  and  to  ascribe  to  the  intrinsic  value  of  her 
scheme  the  brilliant  success  it  had  achieved.  This 
would  not  have  been  true,  but  it  would  have  been  en 
couraging  to  her;  and  in  the  revery  which  followed 
upon  his  conditional  desire  he  had  a  long  imaginary 
conversation  with  her,  and  discussed  all  her  other 
plans  for  the  revels  of  the  week.  These  had  not  the 
trouble  of  defining  themselves  very  distinctly  in  the 
conversation  in  order  to  win  his  applause,  and  their 
consideration  did  not  carry  him  with  Miss  Shirley  be 
yond  the  strictly  professional  ground  on  which  they  met. 

She  had  apparently  invented  nothing  for  that  even 
ing,  and  the  house  party  was  left  to  its  own  resources 
in  dancing  and  sitting  out  dances,  which  apparently 
fully  sufficed  it.  They  were  all  tired,  and  broke  up 
early.  The  women  took  their  candles  and  went  off  to 
bed,  and  the  men  went  to  the  billiard-room  to  smoke. 
On  the  way  down  from  his  room,  where  he  had  gone  to 
put  on  his  smoking-jacket,  Verrian  met  Miss  Macroyd 
coming  up,  candle  in  hand,  and  received  from  her  a 

65 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

tacit  intimation  that  he  might  stop  her  for  a  joking 
good-night. 

"  I  hope  you'll  sleep  well  on  your  laurels  as  umpire/' 
he  said. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,"  she  returned,  "  and  I  hope  your 
laurels  won't  keep  you  awake.  It  must  seem  to  you  as 
if  it  was  blowing  a  perfect  gale  in  them." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?    I  did  nothing." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  your  promotion  of  the  snow  bat 
tle.  But  haven't  you  heard  ?"  He  stared.  "  You've 
been  found  out!" 

"  Found  out  ?"  Verrian's  soul  was  filled  with  the  joy 
of  literary  fame. 

"  Yes.  You  can't  conceal  yourself  now.  You're 
Verrian  the  actor." 

"  The  actor  ?"  Verrian  frowned  blackly  in  his  dis 
gust,  so  blackly  that  Miss  Macroyd  laughed  aloud. 

"  Yes,  the  coming  matinee  idol.  One  of  the  girls 
recognized  you  as  soon  as  you  came  into  the  house,  and 
the  name  settled  it,  though,  of  course,  you're  supposed 
to  be  here  incognito." 

The  mention  of  that  name  which  he  enjoyed  in  com 
mon  with  the  actor  made  Verrian  furious,  for  when  the 
actor  first  appeared  with  it  in  New  York  Verrian  had 
been  at  the  pains  to  find  out  that  it  was  not  his  real 
name,  and  that  he  had  merely  taken  it  because  of  the 
weak  quality  of  romance  in  it,  which  Verrian  himself 
had  always  disliked.  But,  of  course,  he  could  not  vent 
his  fury  on  Miss  Macroyd.  All  he  could  do  was  to  ask, 
"  Then  they  have  got  my  photograph  on  their  dressing- 
tables,  with  candles  burning  before  it  ?" 

"  No,  I  don't  believe  I  can  give  you  that  comfort. 
The  fact  is,  your  acting  is  not  much  admired  among  the 
girls  here,  but  they  think  you  are  unexpectedly  nice 
as  a  private  person." 

66 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

"  That's  something.  And  does  Mrs.  Westangle  think 
I'm  the  actor,  too  ?" 

"  How  should  Mrs.  Westangle  know  what  she  thinks  ? 
And  if  she  doesn't,  how  should  I  ?" 

"  That's  true.    And  are  you  going  to  give  me  away  ?" 

"  I  haven't  done  it  yet.  But  isn't  it  best  to  be  hon 
est?" 

"  It  mightn't  be  a  success." 

"The  honesty?" 

"  My  literary  celebrity." 

"  There's  that,"  Miss  Macroyd  rejoiced.  "  Well,  so 
far  I've  merely  said  I  was  sure  you  were  not  Verrian 
the  actor.  I'll  think  the  other  part  over."  She  went 
on  up-stairs,  with  the  sound  of  her  laugh  following  her, 
and  Verrian  went  gloomily  back  to  the  billiard-room, 
where  he  found  most  of  the  smokers  conspicuously  yawn 
ing.  He  lighted  a  fresh  cigar,  and  while  he  smoked 
they  dropped  away  one  by  one  till  only  Bushwick  was 
left. 

"  Some  of  the  fellows  are  going  Thursday,"  he  said. 
"  Are  you  going  to  stick  it  out  to  the  bitter  end  ?" 

Till  then  it  had  not  occurred  to  Verrian  that  he  was 
not  going  to  stay  through  the  week,  but  now  he  said, 
"  I  don't  know  but  I  may  go  Thursday.  Shall  you  ?" 

"  I  might  as  well  stay  on.  I  don't  find  much  doing 
in  real  estate  at  Christmas.  Do  you  ?" 

This  was  fishing,  but  it  was  better  than  openly  taking 
him  for  that  actor,  and  Verrian  answered,  unresent- 
fully,  "  I  don't  know.  I'm  not  in  that  line  exactly." 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  Bushwick  said.  "  I 
thought  I  had  seen  your  name  with  that  of  a  West 
Side  concern." 

"  No,  I  have  a  sort  of  outside  connection  with  the 
publishing  business." 

"  Oh,"  Bushwick  returned,  politely,  and  it  would 
6  67 


FENNEL     AND     HUE 

have  been  reassuringly  if  Verrian  had  wished  not  to  be 
known  as  an  author.  The  secret  in  which  he  lived  in 
that  regard  was  apparently  safe  from  that  young,  ami 
able,  good-looking  real-estate  broker.  He  inferred,  from 
the  absence  of  any  allusion  to  the  superstition  of  the 
women  as  to  his  profession,  that  it  had  not  spread  to 
Bushwick  at  least,  and  this  inclined  him  the  more  to 
like  him.  They  sat  up  talking  pleasantly  together  about 
impersonal  affairs  till  Bushwick  finished  his  cigar. 
Then  he  started  for  bed,  saying,  "  Well,  good-night.  I 
hope  Mrs.  Westangle  won't  have  anything  so  active  on 
the  tapis  for  to-morrow." 

"  Try  and  sleep  it  off.    Good-night." 


XV 


VERRIAN  remained  to  finish  his  cigar,  but  at  the  end 
he  was  not  yet  sleepy,  and  he  thought  he  would  get 
a  book  from  the  library,  if  that  part  of  the  house  were 
still  lighted,  and  he  looked  out  to  see.  Apparently  it 
was  as  brilliantly  illuminated  as  when  the  company  had 
separated  there  for  the  night,  and  he  pushed  across  the 
foyer  hall  that  separated  the  billiard-room  from  the 
drawing-room  and  library.  He  entered  the  drawing- 
room,  and  in  the  depths  of  the  library,  relieved  against 
the  rows  of  books  in  their  glass  cases,  he  startled  Miss 
Shirley  from  a  pose  which  she  seemed  to  be  taking  there 
alone. 

At  the  instant  of  their  mutual  recognition  she  gave 
a  little  muted  shriek,  and  then  gasped  out,  "  I  beg  your 
pardon,"  while  he  was  saying,  too,  "  I  beg  your  pardon." 

After  a  tacit  exchange  of  forgiveness,  he  said,  "  I  am 
afraid  I  startled  you.  I  was  just  coming  for  a  book  to 
read  myself  asleep  with.  I — " 

"  Not  at  all,"  she  returned.  "  I  was  just—"  Then 
she  did  not  say  what,  and  he  asked : 

"  Making  some  studies  ?" 

"  Yes,"  she  owned,  with  reluctant  promptness. 

"  I  mustn't  ask  what,"  he  suggested,  and  he  made  an 
effort  to  smile  away  what  seemed  a  painful  perturbation 
in  her  as  he  went  forward  to  look  at  the  book-shelves, 
from  which,  till  then,  she  had  not  slipped  aside. 

"  I'm  in  your  way,"  she  said,  and  he  answered,  "  Not 
at  all."  He  added  to  the  other  sentence  he  had  spoken, 

69 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

(i  If  it's  going  to  be  as  good  as  what  you  gave  us  to 
day-" 

"  You  are  very  kind."  She  hesitated,  and  then  she 
said,  abruptly :  "  What  I  did  to-day  owed  everything  to 
you,  Mr.  Verrian,"  and  while  he  desisted  from  search 
ing  the  book-shelves,  she  stood  looking  anxiously  at  him, 
with  the  pulse  in  her  neck  visibly  throbbing.  Her  agita 
tion  was  really  painful,  but  Verrian  did  not  attribute 
it  to  her  finding  herself  there  alone  with  him  at  mid 
night  ;  for  though  the  other  guests  had  all  gone  to  bed, 
the  house  was  awake  in  some  of  the  servants,  and  an 
elderly  woman  came  in  presently  bringing  a  breadth 
of  silvery  gauze,  which  she  held  up,  asking  if  it  was 
that. 

"  Not  exactly,  but  it  will  do  nicely,  Mrs.  Stager. 
Would  you  mind  getting  me  the  very  pale-blue  piece — 
that  electric  blue  ?" 

"  I'm  looking  for  something  good  and  dull,"  Yerrian 
said,  when  the  woman  was  gone. 

"  Travels  are  good,  or  narratives,  for  sleeping  on," 
she  said,  with  a  breathless  effort  for  calm.  "  I  found," 
she  panted,  "  in  my  own  insomnia,  that  merely  the 
broken-up  look  of  a  page  of  dialogue  in  a  novel  racked 
my  nerves  so  that  I  couldn't  sleep.  But  narratives  were 
beautifully  soothing." 

"  Thank  you,"  he  responded ;  "  that's  a  good  idea." 
And  stooping,  with  his  hands  on  his  knees,  he  ranged 
back  and  forth  along  the  shelves.  "  But  Mrs.  West- 
angle's  library  doesn't  seem  to  be  very  rich  in  narrative." 

He  had  not  his  mind  on  the  search  perhaps,  and  per 
haps  she  knew  it.  She  presently  said,  "  I  wish  I  dared 
ask  you  a  favor — I  mean  your  advice,  Mr.  Yerrian." 

He  lifted  himself  from  his  stooping  posture  and 
looked  at  her,  smiling.  "  Would  that  take  much  cour 
age?"  His  smile  was  a  little  mocking;  he  was  think- 

70 


AM   AFRAID   I    STARTLED   YOU.       I  WAS  JUST  COMING    FOR  A   BOOK 
TO    READ    MYSELF   TO    SLEEP    WITH'" 


FENNEL  AND  KUE 

ing  that  a  girl  who  would  hurry  that  note  to  him,  and 
would  personally  see  that  it  did  not  fail  to  reach  him, 
would  have  the  courage  for  much  more. 

She  did  not  reply  directly.  "  I  should  have  to  ex 
plain,  but  I  know  you  won't  tell.  This  is  going  to 
be  my  piece  de  resistance,  my  grand  stunt.  I'm  going 
to  bring  it  off  the  last  night."  She  stopped  long  enough 
for  Verrian  to  revise  his  resolution  of  going  away  with 
the  fellows  who  were  leaving  the  middle  of  the  week, 
and  to  decide  on  staying  to  the  end.  "  I  am  going  to 
call  it  Seeing  Ghosts." 

"  That's  good,"  Verrian  said,  provisionally. 

"  Yes,  I  might  say  I  was  surprised  at  my  thinking 
it  up." 

"  That  would  be  one  form  of  modesty." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  with  a  wan  smile  she  had,  "  and  then 
again  it  mightn't  be  another."  She  went  on,  abruptly, 
"  As  many  as  like  can  take  part  in  the  performance. 
It's  to  be  given  out,  and  distinctly  understood  before 
hand,  that  the  ghost  isn't  a  veridical  phantom,  but  just 
an  honest,  made-up,  every-day  spook.  It  may  change 
its  pose  from  time  to  time,  or  its  drapery,  but  the  setting 
is  to  be  always  the  same,  and  the  people  who  take  their 
turns  in  seeing  it  are  to  be  explicitly  reassured,  one  after 
another,  that  there's  nothing  in  it,  you  know.  The  fun 
will  be  in  seeing  how  each  one  takes  it,  after  they  know 
what  it  really  is." 

"  Then  you're  going  to  give  us  a  study  of  tempera 
ments." 

"  Yes,"  she  assented.  And  after  a  moment,  given  to 
letting  the  notion  get  quite  home  with  her,  she  asked, 
vividly,  "  Would  you  let  me  use  it  ?" 

"  The  phrase  ?  Why,  certainly.  But  wouldn't  it  be 
rather  too  psychological?  I  think  just  Seeing  Ghosts 
would  be  better." 

71 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"Better  than  Seeing  Ghosts:  A  Study  of  Tempera 
ments?  Perhaps  it  would.  It  would  be  simpler." 

"  And  in  this  house  you  need  all  the  simplicity  you 
can  get,"  he  suggested. 

She  smiled,  intelligently  but  reticently.  "  My  idea 
is  that  every  one  somehow  really  believes  in  ghosts — 
I  know  I  do — and  so  fully  expects  to  see  one  that  any 
sort  of  make-up  will  affect  them  for  the  moment  just 
as  if  they  did  see  one.  I  thought — that  perhaps — I 
don't  know  how  to  say  it  without  seeming  to  make 
use  of  you — " 

"  Oh,  do  make  use  of  me,  Miss  Shirley !" 

"  That  you  could  give  me  some  hints  about  the  set 
ting,  with  your  knowledge  of  the  stage — "  She  stopped, 
having  rushed  forward  to  that  point,  while  he  continued 
to  look  steadily  at  her  without  answering  her.  She 
faced  him  courageously,  but  not  convincingly. 

"Did  you  think  that  I  was  an  actor?"  he  asked, 
finally. 

"  Mrs.  Westangle  seemed  to  think  you  were." 

"But  did  you?" 

"  I'm  sure  I  didn't  mean — I  beg  your  pardon — " 

"  It's  all  right.  If  I  were  an  actor  I  shouldn't  be 
ashamed  of  it.  But  I  was  merely  curious  to  know 
whether  you  shared  the  prevalent  superstition.  I'm 
afraid  I  can't  help  you  from  a  knowledge  of  the  stage, 
but  if  I  can  be  of  use,  from  a  sort  of  amateur  interest 
in  psychology,  with  an  affair  like  this  I  shall  be  only 
too  glad." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said,  somewhat  faintly,  with  an 
effect  of  dismay  disproportionate  to  the  occasion. 

She  sank  into  a  chair  before  which  she  had  been 
standing,  and  she  looked  as  if  she  were  going  to  swoon. 

He  started  towards  her  with  an  alarmed  "  Miss  Shir- 
ley!" 

72 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

She  put  out  a  hand  weakly  to  stay  him.  "  Don't !" 
she  entreated.  "  I'm  a  little —  I  shall  be  all  right  in 
a  moment." 

"  Can't  I  get  you  something — call  some  one  ?" 

"  Not  for  the  world !"  she  commanded,  and  she 
pulled  herself  together  and  stood  up.  "  But  I  think  I'll 
stop  for  to-night.  I'm  glad  my  idea  strikes  you  favor 
ably.  It's  merely —  Oh,  you  found  it,  Mrs.  Stager!" 
She  broke  off  to  address  the  woman  who  had  now  come 
back  and  was  holding  up  the  trailing  breadths  of  the 
electric-blue  gauze.  "  Isn't  it  lovely  ?"  She  gave  herself 
time  to  adore  the  drapery,  with  its  changes  of  meteoric 
lucenee,  before  she  rose  and  took  it.  She  went  with 
it  to  the  background  in  the  library,  where,  against  the 
glass  door  of  the  cases,  she  involved  herself  in  it  and 
stood  shimmering.  A  thrill  pierced  to  Verrian's  heart ; 
she  was  indeed  wraithlike,  so  that  he  hated  to  have  her 
call,  "How  will  that  do?" 

Mrs.  Stager  modestly  referred  the  question  to  him  by 
her  silence.  "  I  will  answer  for  its  doing,  if  it  does 
for  the  others  as  it's  done  for  me." 

She  laughed.  "  And  you  doubly  knew  what  it  was. 
Yes,  I  think  it  will  go."  She  took  another  pose,  and 
then  another.  "  What  do  you  think  of  it,  Mrs.  Stager  ?" 
she  called  to  the  woman  standing  respectfully  abeyant 
at  one  side. 

"  It's  awful.  I  don't  know  but  I'll  be  afraid  to  go 
to  my  room." 

"  Sit  down,  and  I'll  go  to  your  room  with  you  when 
I'm  through.  I  won't  be  long,  now." 

She  tried  different  gauzes,  which  she  had  lying  on 
one  of  the  chairs,  and  crowned  herself  with  triumph 
in  the  applauses  of  her  two  spectators,  rejoicing  with 
a  glee  that  Verrian  found  childlike  and  winning.  "  If 
they're  all  like  vou,  it  will  be  the  greatest  success !" 

73 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  They'll  all  be  like  me,  and  more,"  he  said.  "  I'm 
really  very  severe." 

"  Are  you  a  severe  person  ?"  she  asked,  coming  for 
ward  to  him.  "  Ought  people  to  be  afraid  of  you  ?" 

"  Yes,  people  with  bad  consciences.  I'm  rather  afraid 
of  myself  for  that  reason." 

"  Have  you  got  a  bad  conscience  ?"  she  asked,  letting 
her  eyes  rest  on  his. 

"  Yes.  I  can't  make  my  conduct  square  with  my 
ideal  of  conduct." 

"  I  know  what  that  is !"  she  sighed.  "  Do  you  expect 
to  be  punished  for  it  ?" 

"  I  expect  to  be  got  even  with." 

"  Yes,  one  is.  I've  noticed  that  myself.  But  I 
didn't  suppose  that  actors —  Oh,  I  forgot !  I  beg  your 
pardon  again,  Mr.  Verrian.  Oh —  Good-night!"  She 
faced  him  evanescently  in  going  out,  with  the  woman 
after  her,  but,  whether  she  did  so  more  in  fear  or  more  in 
defiance,  she  left  him  standing  motionless  in  his  doubt, 
and  she  did  nothing  to  solve  his  doubt  when  she  came 
quickly  back  alone,  before  he  was  aware  of  having 
moved,  to  say,  "  Mr.  Verrian,  I  want  to — I  have  to — 
tell  you  that — I  didn't  think  you  were  the  actor."  Then 
she  was  finally  gone,  and  Verrian  had  nothing  for  it 
but  to  go  up  to  his  room  with  the  book  he  found  he  had 
in  his  hand  and  must  have  had  there  all  the  time. 

If  he  had  read  it,  the  book  would  not  have  eased  him 
off  to  sleep,  but  he  did  not  even  try  to  read  it.  He  had 
no  wish  to  sleep.  The  waking  dream  in  which  he  lost 
himself  was  more  interesting  than  any  vision  of  slumber 
could  have  been,  and  he  had  no  desire  to  end  it.  In 
that  he  could  still  be  talking  with  the  girl  whose  mystery 
appealed  to  him  so  pleasingly.  It  was  none  the  less 
pleasing  because,  at  what  might  be  called  her  first 
blushes,  she  did  not  strike  him  as  altogether  ingenuous, 

74 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

but  only  able  to  discipline  herself  into  a  final  sincerity 
from  a  consciousness  which,  had  been  taught  wisdom  by 
experience. 

She  was  still  a  scarcely  recovered  invalid,  and  it  was 
pathetic  that  she  should  be  commencing  the  struggle 
of  life  with  strength  so  little  proportioned  to  the  de 
mand  upon  it ;  and  the  calling  she  had  taken  up  was  of 
a  fantasticality  in  some  aspects  which  was  equally 
pathetic.  But  all  the  undertakings  of  women,  he  mused, 
were  piteous,  not  only  because  women  were  unequal  to 
the  struggle  at  the  best,  but  because  they  were  ham 
pered  always  with  themselves,  with  their  sex,  their 
femininity,  and  the  necessity  of  getting  it  out  of  the 
way  before  they  could  really  begin  to  fight.  Whatever 
they  attempted  it  must  be  in  relation  to  the  man's  world 
in  which  livings  were  made ;  but  the  immemorial  con 
ditions  were  almost  wholly  unchanged.  A  woman  ap 
proached  this  world  as  a  woman,  with  the  inborn  in 
stinct  of  tempting  it  as  a  woman,  to  win  it  to  love  her 
and  make  her  a  wife  and  mother;  and  although  she 
might  stoically  overcome  the  temptation  at  last,  it  might 
recur  at  any  moment  and  overcome  her.  This  was 
perpetually  weakening  and  imperilling  her,  and  she 
must  feel  it  at  the  encounter  with  each  man  she  met. 
She  must  feel  the  tacit  and  even  unconscious  irony 
of  his  attitude  towards  her  in  her  enterprise,  and  the 
finer  her  make  the  crueller  and  the  more  humiliating 
and  disheartening  this  must  be. 

Of  course,  this  Miss  Shirley  felt  Verrian's  irony, 
which  he  had  guarded  from  any  expression  with  gen 
uine  compassion  for  her.  She  must  feel  that  to  his 
knowledge  of  life  she  and  her  experiment  had  an  ab 
surdity  which  would  not  pass,  whatever  their  success 
might  be.  If  she  meant  business,  and  business  only, 
they  ought  to  have  met  as  two  men  would  have  met,  but 

75 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

he  knew  that  they  had  not  done  so,  and  she  must  have 
known  it.  All  that  was  plain  sailing  enough,  but  be 
yond  this  lay  a  sea  of  conjecture  in  which  he  found  him 
self  without  helm  or  compass.  Why  should  she  have 
acted  a  fib  about  his  being  an  actor,  and  why,  after  the 
end,  should  she  have  added  an  end,  in  which  she  re 
turned  to  own  that  she  had  been  fibbing  ?  For  that  was 
what  it  came  to ;  and  though  Verrian  tasted  a  delicious 
pleasure  in  the  womanish  feat  by  which  she  overcame 
her  womanishness,  he  could  not  puzzle  out  her  motive. 
He  was  not  sure  that  he  wished  to  puzzle  it  out.  To  re 
main  with  illimitable  guesses  at  his  choice  was  more 
agreeable,  for  the  present  at  least,  and  he  was  not 
aware  of  having  lapsed  from  them  when  he  woke  so 
late  as  to  be  one  of  the  breakfasters  whose  plates  were 
kept  for  them  after  the  others  were  gone. 


XVI 

IT  was  the  first  time  that  Verrian  had  come  down 
late,  and  it  was  his  novel  experience  to  find  himself  in 
charge  of  Mrs.  Stager  at  breakfast,  instead  of  the  but 
ler  and  the  butler's  man,  who  had  hitherto  served  him 
at  the  earlier  hour.  There  were  others,  somewhat  re 
mote  from  him,  at  table,  who  were  ending  when  he 
was  beginning,  and  when  they  had  joked  themselves  out 
of  the  room  and  away  from  Mrs.  Stager's  ministrations 
he  was  left  alone  to  her.  He  had  instantly  appreciated 
a  quality  of  motherliness  in  her  attitude  towards  him, 
and  now  he  was  sensible  of  a  kindly  intimacy  to  which 
he  rather  helplessly  addressed  himself. 

"  Well,  Mrs.  Stager,  did  you  see  a  ghost  on  your  way 
to  bed?" 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  really  expected  to,"  she  said. 
"  Won't  you  have  a  few  more  of  the  buckwheats  ?" 

"  Do  you  think  I'd  better  ?  I  believe  I  won't. 
They're  very  tempting.  Miss  Shirley  makes  a  very 
good  ghost,"  he  suggested. 

Mrs.  Stager  would  not  at  first  commit  herself  further 
than  to  say  in  bringing  him  the  butter,  "  She's  just 
up  from  a  long  fit  of  sickness."  She  impulsively 
added,  "  She  ain't  hardly  strong  enough  to  be  doing 
what  she  is,  I  tell  her." 

"  I  understood  she  had  been  ill,"  Verrian  said.  "  We 
drove  over  from  the  station  together,  the  other  day." 

"  Yes,"  Mrs.  Stager  admitted.  "  Kind  of  a  nervous 
breakdown,  I  believe.  But  she's  got  an  awful  spirit. 

77 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

Mrs.  Westangle  don't  want  her  to  do  all  she  is  do- 
ing." 

Verrian  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  He  had  not  ex 
pected  that  of  the  india-rubber  nature  he  had  attributed 
to  Mrs.  Westangle.  In  view  of  Mrs.  Stager's  privity  to 
the  unimagined  kindliness  of  his  hostess,  he  relaxed 
himself  in  a  further  interest  in  Miss  Shirley,  as  if  it 
would  now  be  safe.  "  She's  done  splendidly,  so  far," 
he  said,  meaning  the  girl.  "  I'm  glad  Mrs.  Westangle 
appreciates  her  work." 

"I  guess,"  Mrs.  Stager  said,  "that  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  you  at  the  snow-fight —  She  got  back  from 
getting  ready  for  it,  that  morning,  almost  down  sick, 
she  was  afraid  so  it  was  going  to  fail." 

"  I  didn't  do  anything,"  Verrian  said,  putting  the 
praise  from  him. 

Mrs.  Stager  lowered  her  voice  in  an  octave  of  deeper 
confidentiability.  "  You  got  the  note  ?  I  put  it  under, 
and  I  didn't  know." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  got  it,"  Yerrian  said,  sensible  of  a  re 
lief,  which  he  would  not  assign  to  any  definite  reason, 
in  knowing  that  Miss  Shirley  had  not  herself  put  it 
under  his  door.  But  he  now  had  to  take  up  another 
burden  in  the  question  whether  Miss  Shirley  were  of 
an  origin  so  much  above  that  of  her  confidant  that  she 
could  have  a  patrician  fearlessness  in  making  use  of 
her,  or  were  so  near  Mrs.  Stager's  level  of  life  that  she 
would  naturally  turn  to  her  for  counsel  and  help.  Miss 
Shirley  had  the  accent,  the  manners,  and  the  frank 
courage  of  a  lady;  but  those  things  could  be  learned; 
they  were  got  up  for  the  stage  every  day. 

Verrian  was  roused  from  the  muse  he  found  he  had 
fallen  into  by  hearing  Mrs.  Stager  ask,  "  Won't  you 
have  some  more  coffee  ?" 

"  No,  thank  you,"  he  said.  And  now  he  rose  from  the 

78 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

table,  on  which,  he  dreamily  dropped  his  napkin,  and 
got  his  hat  and  coat  and  went  out  for  a  walk.  He  had 
not  studied  the  art  of  fiction  so  long,  in  the  many  pri 
vate  failures  that  had  preceded  his  one  public  success, 
without  being  made  to  observe  that  life  sometimes  dealt 
in  the  accidents  and  coincidences  which  his  criticism 
condemned  as  too  habitually  the  resource  of  the  novelist. 
Hitherto  he  had  disdained  them  for  this  reason;  but 
since  his  serial  story  was  off  his  hands,  and  he  was 
beginning  to  look  about  him  for  fresh  material,  he  had 
doubted  more  than  once  whether  his  severity  was  not 
the  effect  of  an  unjustifiable  prejudice. 

It  struck  him  now,  in  turning  the  corner  of  the  wood- 
lot  above  the  meadow  where  the  snow-battle  had  taken 
place,  and  suddenly  finding  himself  face  to  face  with 
Miss  Shirley,  that  nature  was  in  one  of  her  uninventive 
moods  and  wras  helping  herself  out  from  the  old  stock- 
in-trade  of  fiction.  All  the  same,  he  felt  a  glow  of 
pleasure,  which  was  also  a  glow  of  pity ;  for  while  Miss 
Shirley  looked,  as  always,  interesting,  she  look  tired, 
too,  with  a  sort  of  desperate  air  which  did  not  otherwise 
account  for  itself.  She  had  given,  at  sight  of  him,  a 
little  start,  and  a  little  "  Oh !"  dropped  from  her  lips, 
as  if  it  had  been  jostled  from  them.  She  made  haste 
to  go  on,  with  something  like  the  voluntary  hardi 
ness  of  the  courage  that  plucks  itself  from  the  primary 
emotion  of  fear,  "  You  are  going  down  to  try  the 
skating?" 

"  Do  I  look  it,  without  skates  ?" 

"  You  may  be  going  to  try  the  sliding,"  she  returned. 
"  I'm  afraid  there  won't  be  much  of  either  for  long. 
This  soft  air  is  going  to  make  havoc  of  my  plans  for 
to-morrow." 

"  That's  too  bad  of  it.  Why  not  hope  for  a  hard 
freeze  to-night  ?  You  might  as  well.  The  weather  has 

79 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

been  known  to  change  its  mind.  You  might  even  change 
your  plans." 

"  No,  I  can't  do  that.  I  can't  think  of  anything  else. 
It's  to  bridge  over  the  day  that's  left  before  Seeing 
Ghosts.  If  it  does  freeze,  you'll  come  to  Mrs.  West- 
angle's  afternoon  tea  on  the  pond  ?" 

"  I  certainly  shall.    How  is  it  to  be  worked  ?" 

"  She's  to  have  her  table  on  a  platform,  with  runners, 
in  a  bower  of  evergreen  boughs,  and  be  pushed  about, 
and  the  people  are  to  skate  up  for  the  tea.  There  are 
to  be  tea  and  chocolate,  and  two  girls  to  pour,  just  as  in 
real  life.  It  isn't  a  very  dazzling  idea,  but  I  thought  it 
might  do;  and  Mrs.  Westangle  is  so  good-natured. 
Now,  if  the  thermometer  will  do  its  part !" 

"  I  am  sure  it  will,"  Verrian  said,  but  a  glance  at 
the  gray  sky  did  not  confirm  him  in  his  prophetic 
venture.  The  snow  was  sodden  under  foot;  a  breath 
from  the  south  stirred  the  pines  to  an  aeolian  response 
and  moved  the  stiff,  dry  leaves  of  the  scrub-oaks.  A 
sapsucker  was  marking  an  accurate  circle  of  dots  round 
the  throat  of  a  tall  young  maple,  and  enjoying  his  work 
in  a  low,  guttural  soliloquy,  seemingly,  yet,  dismayingly, 
suggestive  of  spring. 

"  It's  lovely,  anyway,"  she  said,  following  his  glance 
with  an  upward  turn  of  her  face. 

"  Yes,  it's  beautiful.  I  think  this  sort  of  winter  day 
is  about  the  best  the  whole  year  can  do.  But  I  will 
sacrifice  the  chance  of  another  like  it  to  your  skating- 
tea,  Miss  Shirley." 

He  did  not  know  why  he  should  have  made  this  speech 
to  her,  but  apparently  she  did,  and  she  said,  "  You're 
always  coming  to  my  help,  Mr.  Verrian." 

"  Don't  mention  it !" 

"  I  won't,  then,"  she  said,  with  a  smile  that  showed 
her  thin  face  at  its  thinnest  and  left  her  lip  caught  on 

80 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

her  teeth  till  she  brought  it  down  voluntarily.  It  was 
a  small  but  full  lip  and  pretty,  and  this  trick  of  it 
had  a  fascination.  She  added,  gravely,  "  I  don't  believe 
you  will  like  my  ice-tea." 

"  I  haven't  any  active  hostility  to  it.  You  can't 
always  be  striking  twelve — twelve  midnight — as  you 
will  be  in  Seeing  Ghosts.  But  your  ice-tea  will  do 
very  well  for  striking  five.  I'm  rather  elaborate!" 

"  Not  too  elaborate  to  hide  your  real  opinion.  I  won 
der  what  you  do  think  of  my  own  elaboration — I  mean 
of  my  scheme." 

"  Yes  ?" 

They  had  moved  on,  at  his  turning  to  walk  with  her, 
so  as  not  to  keep  her  standing  in  the  snow,  and  now  she 
said,  looking  over  her  shoulder  at  him,  "  I've  decided 
that  it  won't  do  to  let  the  ghost  have  all  the  glory.  I 
don't  think  it  will  be  fair  to  let  the  people  merely  be 
scared,  even  when  they've  been  warned  that  they're 
to  see  a  ghost  and  told  it  isn't  real." 

She  seemed  to  refer  the  point  to  him,  and  he  said, 
provisionally,  "  I  don't  know  what  more  they  can. 
ask." 

"  They  can  ask  questions.  I'm  going  to  let  each  per 
son  speak  to  the  ghost,  if  not  scared  dumb,  and  ask  it 
just  what  they  please;  and  I'm  going  to  answer  their 
questions  if  I  can." 

"  Won't  it  be  something  of  an  intellectual  strain  ?" 

"  Yes,  it  will.  But  it  will  be  fun,  too,  a  little,  and 
it  will  help  the  thing  to  go  off.  What  do  you  think  ?" 

"  I  think  it's  fine.  Are  you  going  to  give  it  out,  so 
that  they  can  be  studying  up  their  questions  ?" 

"  No,  their  questions  have  got  to  be  impromptu.  Or, 
at  least,  the  first  one  has.  Of  course,  after  the  scheme 
has  once  been  given  away,  the  ghost-seers  will  be  more 
or  less  prepared,  and  the  ghost  will  have  to  stand  it." 

81 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  I  think  it's  great.  Are  you  going  to  let  me  have  a 
chance  with  a  question  ?" 

"  Are  you  going  to  see  a  ghost  ?" 

"  To  he  sure  I  am.  May  I  really  ask  it  what  I 
please  ?" 

"  If  you're  honest." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  be  honest—  " 

He  stopped  breathlessly,  hut  she  did  not  seem  called 
upon  to  supply  any  meaning  for  his  abruptness.  "  I'm 
awfully  glad  you  like  the  idea,"  she  said.  "  I  have  had 
to  think  the  whole  thing  out  for  myself,  and  I  haven't 
been  quite  certain  that  the  question-asking  wasn't  rather 
silly,  or,  at  least,  sillier  than  the  rest.  Thank  you  so 
much,  Mr.  Verrian." 

"  I've  thought  of  my  question,"  he  began  again,  as 
abruptly  as  he  had  stopped  before.  "  May  I  ask  it 
now?" 

Cries  of  laughter  came  up  from  the  meadow  below, 
and  the  voices  seemed  coming  nearer. 

"  Oh,  I  mustn't  be  seen !"  Miss  Shirley  lamented. 
"  Oh,  dear !  If  I'm  seen  the  whole  thing  is  given  away. 
What  shall  I  do?"  She  whirled  about  and  ran  down 
the  road  towards  a  path  that  entered  the  wood. 

He  ran  after  her.  "  My  question  is,  May  I  come  to 
see  you  when  you  get  back  to  town  ?" 

"  Yes,  certainly.  But  don't  come  now !  You  mustn't 
be  seen  with  me !  I'm  not  supposed  to  be  in  the  house 
at  all." 

If  Verrian's  present  mood  had  been  more  analytic, 
it  might  have  occurred  to  him  that  the  element  of 
mystery  which  Miss  Shirley  seemed  to  cherish  in  re 
gard  to  herself  personally  was  something  that  she  could 
dramatically  apply  with  peculiar  advantage  to  the 
phantasmal  part  she  was  to  take  in  her  projected  en 
tertainment.  But  he  was  reduced  from  the  exercise  of 

82 


FENNEL     AND     HUE 

his  analytic  powers  to  a  passivity  in  which  he  was 
chiefly  conscious  of  her  pathetic  fascination.  This 
seemed  to  emanate  from  her  frail  prettiness  no  less 
than  from  the  sort  of  fearful  daring  with  which  she 
was  pushing  her  whole  enterprise  through;  it  came  as 
much  from  her  undecided  blondness — from  her  dust- 
colored  hair,  for  instance — as  from  the  entreating  look 
of  her  pinched  eyes,  only  just  lighting  their  convalescent 
fires,  and  from  the  weakness  that  showed,  with  the  grace, 
in  her  run  through  the  wintry  woods,  where  he  watched 
her  till  the  underbrush  thickened  behind  her  and  hid 
her  from  him.  Altogether  his  impression  was  very 
complex,  but  he  did  not  get  so  far  even  as  the  realiza 
tion  of  this,  in  his  mental  turmoil,  as  he  turned  with 
a  deep  sigh  and  walked  meditatively  homeward  through 
the  incipient  thaw. 

It  did  not  rain  at  night,  as  it  seemed  so  likely  to  do, 
and  by  morning  the  cloudiness  of  the  sky  had  so  far 
thinned  that  the  sun  looked  mildly  through  it  without 
more  than  softening  the  frozen  surface  of  the  pond,  so 
that  Mrs.  Westangle's  ice-tea  (as  everybody  called  it, 
by  a  common  inspiration,  or  by  whatever  circuitous 
adoption  of  Verrian's  phrase)  came  off  with  great  suc 
cess.  People  from  other  houses  were  there,  and  they 
all  said  that  they  wondered  how  she  came  to  have  such 
a  brilliant  idea,  and  they  kept  her  there  till  nearly 
dark.  Then  the  retarded  rain  began,  in  a  fine  drizzle, 
and  her  house  guests  were  forced  homeward,  but  not 
too  soon  to  get  a  good,  long  rest  before  dressing  for 
dinner.  She  was  praised  for  her  understanding  with 
the  weather,  and  for  her  meteorological  forecast  as  much 
as  for  her  invention  in  imagining  such  a  delightful  and 
original  thing  as  an  ice-tea,  which  no  one  else  had  ever 
thought  of.  Some  of  the  women  appealed  to  Verrian 
to  say  if  he  had  ever  heard  of  anything  like  it;  and 
7  83 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

they  felt  that  Mrs.  Westangle  was  certainly  arriving, 
and  by  no  beaten  track. 

None  of  the  others  put  it  in  these  terms,  of  course ; 
it  was  merely  a  consensus  of  feeling  with  them,  and 
what  was  more  articulate  was  dropped  among  the  iro 
nies  with  which  Miss  Macroyd  more  confidentially  cele 
brated  the  event.  Out  of  hearing  of  the  others,  in  slow 
ly  following  them  with  Verrian,  she  recurred  to  their 
talk.  "  Yes,  it's  only  a  question  of  money  enough 
for  Newport,  after  this.  She's  chic  now,  and  after  a 
season  there  she  will  be  smart.  But  oh,  dear!  How 
came  she  to  be  chic  ?  Can  you  imagine  ?" 

Verrian  did  not  feel  bound  to  a  categorical  answer, 
and  in  his  private  reflections  he  dealt  with  another 
question.  This  was  how  far  Miss  Shirley  was  culpable 
in  the  fraud  she  was  letting  Mrs.  Westangle  practise 
on  her  innocent  guests.  It  was  a  distasteful  question, 
and  he  did  not  find  it  much  more  agreeable  when  it  sub 
divided  itself  into  the  question  of  necessity  on  her  part, 
and  of  a  not  very  clearly  realized  situation  on  Mrs. 
Westangle's.  The  girl  had  a  right  to  sell  her  ideas,  and 
perhaps  the  woman  thought  they  were  her  own  when  she 
had  paid  for  them.  There  could  be  that  view  of  it  all. 
The  furtive  nature  of  Miss  Shirley's  presence  in  the 
house  might  very  well  be  a  condition  of  that  grand 
event  she  was  preparing.  It  was  all  very  mysterious. 


XVII 

IT  rained  throughout  the  evening,  with  a  wailing  of 
the  wind  in  the  gables,  and  a  weeping  and  a  sobbing 
of  the  water  from  the  eaves  that  Mrs.  Westangle's  guests, 
securely  housed  from  the  storm,  made  the  most  of  for 
weirdness.  There  had  been  a  little  dancing,  which 
gave  way  to  so  much  sitting-out  that  the  volunteer 
music  abruptly  ceased  as  if  in  dudgeon,  and  there  was 
nothing  left  but  weirdness  to  bring  young  hearts  to 
gether.  Weirdness  can  do  a  good  deal  with  girls  loung 
ing  in  low  chairs,  and  young  men  on  rugs  round  a 
glowing  hearth  at  their  feet;  and  every  one  told  some 
strange  thing  that  had  happened  at  first  hand,  or  second 
or  third  hand,  either  to  himself  or  herself,  or  to  their 
fathers  or  brothers  or  grandmothers  or  old  servants. 
They  were  stimulated  in  eking  out  these  experiences  not 
only  by  the  wildness  of  the  rain  without,  but  by  the 
mystery  of  being  shut  off  from  the  library  into  the 
drawing-room  and  hall  while  the  preparations  for  the 
following  night  were  beginning.  But  weirdness  is  not 
inexhaustible,  even  when  shared  on  such  propitious 
terms  between  a  group  of  young  people  rapidly  ad 
vanced  in  intimacy  by  a  week's  stay  under  the  same 
roof,  and  at  the  first  yawn  a  gay  dispersion  of  the 
votaries  ended  it  all. 

The  yawn  came  from  Bushwick,  who  boldly  owned, 
when  his  guilt  was  brought  home  to  him,  that  he  was 
sleepy,  and  that  as  he  expected  to  be  scared  out  of  a 
year's  growth  the  next  night,  and  not  be  able  to  sleep 

85 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

for  a  week  afterwards,  he  was  now  going  to  bed.  He 
shook  hands  with  Mrs.  Westangle  for  good-night.  The 
latest  to  follow  him  was  Verrian,  who,  strangely  alert, 
and  as  far  from  drowsiness  as  he  had  ever  known  him 
self,  was  yet  more  roused  by  realizing  that  Mrs.  West- 
angle  was  not  letting  his  hand  go  at  once,  but,  unless 
it  was  mere  absent-mindedness,  was  conveying  through 
it  the  wish  to  keep  him.  She  fluttered  a  little  more 
closely  up  to  him,  and  twittered  out,  "  Miss  Shirley 
wants  me  to  let  you  know  that  she  has  told  me  about 
your  coming  together,  and  everything." 

"  Oh,  I'm  very  glad,"  Yerrian  said,  not  sure  that  it 
was  the  right  thing. 

"  I  don't  know  why  she  feels  so,  but  she  has  a  right 
to  do  as  she  pleases  about  it.  She's  not  a  guest." 

"  No,"  Verrian  assented. 

"  It  happens  very  well,  though,  for  the  ghost-seeing 
that  people  don't  know  she's  here.  After  that  I  shall 
tell  them.  In  fact,  she  wants  me  to,  for  she  must  be 
on  the  lookout  for  other  engagements.  I  am  going  to 
do  everything  I  can  for  her,  and  if  you  hear  of  any 
thing—" 

Verrian  bowed,  with  a  sense  of  something  offensive 
in  her  words  which  he  could  not  logically  feel,  since 
it  was  a  matter  of  business  and  was  put  squarely  on 
a  business  basis.  "  I  should  be  very  glad,"  he  said,  non- 
committally. 

"  She  was  sure  from  the  first,"  Mrs.  Westangle  went 
on,  as  if  there  were  some  relation  between  the  fact  and 
her  request,  "  that  you  were  not  the  actor.  She  knew 
you  were  a  writer." 

"  Oh,  indeed !"  Verrian  said. 

"  I  thought  that  if  you  were  writing  for  the  news 
papers  you  might  know  how  to  help  her — " 

"  I'm  not  a  newspaper  writer,"  Verrian  answered, 

86 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

with  a  resentment  which  she  seemed  to  feel,  for  she  said, 
with  a  sort  of  apology  in  her  tone : 

"  Oh !  Well,  I  don't  suppose  it  matters.  She  doesn't 
know  I'm  speaking  to  you  about  that;  it  just  came  into 
my  head.  I  like  to  help  in  a  worthy  object,  you  know. 
I  hope  you'll  have  a  good  night's  rest." 

She  turned  and  looked  round  with  the  air  of  distrac 
tion  which  she  had  after  speaking  to  any  one,  and  which 
Verrian  fancied  came  as  much  from  a  paucity  as  from 
a  multiplicity  of  suggestion  in  her  brain,  and  so  left  him 
standing.  But  she  came  back  to  say,  "  Of  course,  it's 
all  between  ourselves  till  after  to-morrow  night,  Mr. 
Verrian." 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  he  replied,  and  went  vaguely  off 
in  the  direction  of  the  billiard-room.  It  was  light  and 
warm  there,  though  the  place  was  empty,  and  he  de 
cided  upon  a  cigar  as  a  proximate  or  immediate  solu 
tion.  He  sat  smoking  before  the  fire  till  the  tobacco's 
substance  had  half  turned  into  a  wraith  of  ash,  and 
not  really  thinking  of  anything  very  definitely,  except 
the  question  whether  he  should  be  able  to  sleep  after 
he  went  to  bed,  when  he  heard  a  creeping  step  on  the 
floor.  He  turned  quickly,  with  a  certain  expectance  in 
his  nerves,  and  saw  nothing  more  ghostly  than  Bush- 
wick  standing  at  the  corner  of  the  table  and  apparently 
hesitating  how  to  speak  to  him. 

He  said,  "  Hello !"  and  at  this  Bushwick  said : 

"Look  here!" 

"  Well  ?"  Verrian  asked,  looking  at  him. 

"  How  does  it  happen  you're  up  so  late,  after  every 
body  else  is  wrapped  in  slumber?" 

"  I  might  ask  the  same  of  you." 

"  Well,  I  found  I  wasn't  making  it  a  case  of  sleep, 
exactly,  and  so  I  got  up." 

"Well,  I  hadn't  gone  to  bed  for  much  the  same 

87 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

reason.  Why  couldn't  you  sleep  ?  A  real-estate  broker 
ought  to  have  a  clean  conscience." 

"  So  ought  a  publisher,  for  that  matter.  What  do 
you  think  of  this  ghost-dance,  anyway  ?" 

"  It  might  be  amusing — if  it  fails."  Verrian  was 
tempted  to  add  the  condition  by  the  opportunity  for  a 
cynicism  which  he  did  not  feel.  It  is  one  of  the  privi 
leges  of  youth  to  be  cynical,  whether  or  no. 

Bushwick  sat  down  before  the  fire  and  rubbed  his 
shins  with  his  two  hands  unrestfully,  drawing  in  a 
long  breath  between  his  teeth.  "  These  things  get  on 
to  my  nerves  sometimes.  I  shouldn't  want  the  ghost- 
dance  to  fail." 

"  On  Mrs.  Westangle's  account  ?" 

"  I  guess  Mrs.  Westangle  could  stand  it.  Look  here !" 
It  was  rather  a  customary  phrase  of  his,  Verrian  noted. 
As  he  now  used  it  he  looked  alertly  round  at  Verrian, 
with  his  hands  still  on  his  shins.  "  What's  the  use  of 
our  beating  round  the  bush  ?" 

Verrian  delayed  his  answer  long  enough  to  decide 
against  the  aimless  pun  of  asking,  "  What  Bushwick  ?" 
and  merely  asked,  "  What  bush  ?" 

"  The  bush  where  the  milk  in  the  cocoanut  grows. 
You  don't  pretend  that  you  believe  Mrs.  Westangle  has 
been  getting  up  all  these  fairy  stunts  ?" 

Verrian  returned  to  his  cigar,  from  which  the  ashen 
wraith  dropped  into  his  lap.  "  I  guess  you'll  have  to 
be  a  little  clearer."  But  as  Bushwick  continued  silent 
ly  looking  at  him,  the  thing  could  not  be  left  at  this 
point,  and  he  was  obliged  to  ask  of  his  own  initiative, 
"  How  much  do  you  know  ?" 

Bushwick  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  with  his  eyes  still 
on  Verrian's  profile.  "  As  much  as  Miss  Macroyd  could 
tell  me." 

"Ah,  I'm  still  in  the  dark,"  Verrian  politely  re- 

88 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

gretted,  but  not  without  a  tacit  wish  to  wring  Miss 
Macroyd's  neck,  which  he  would  not  have  known  how 
to  account  for. 

"  Well,  she  says  that  Mrs.  Westangle  has  a  profes 
sional  assistant  who's  doing  the  whole  job  for  her,  and 
that  she  came  down  on  the  same  train  with  herself  and 
you." 

"  Did  she  say  that  she  grabbed  the  whole  victoria  for 
herself  and  maid  at  the  station?"  Verrian  demanded, 
in  a  burst  of  rage,  "  and  left  us  to  get  here  the  best 
way  we  could?" 

Bushwick  grinned.  "  She  supposed  there  were  other 
carriages,  and  when  she  found  there  weren't  she  hur 
ried  the  victoria  back  for  you." 

"  You  think  she  believes  all  that  ?  I'm  glad  she  has 
the  decency  to  be  ashamed  of  her  behavior." 

"  I'm  not  defending  her.  Miss  Macroyd  knows  how 
to  take  care  of  herself." 

The  matter  rather  dropped  for  the  moment,  in  which 
Bushwick  filled  a  pipe  he  took  from  his  pocket  and 
lighted  it.  After  the  first  few  whiffs  he  took  it  from 
his  mouth,  and,  with  a  droll  look  across  at  Verrian,  said, 
"  Who  was  your  fair  friend  ?" 

If  Verrian  was  going  to  talk  of  this  thing,  he  was  not 
going  to  do  it  with  the  burden  of  any  sort  of  reserve 
or  contrivance  on  his  soul.  "  This  afternoon  ?"  Bush 
wick  nodded ;  and  Verrian  added,  "  That  was  she."  Then 
he  went  on,  wrathf ully :  "  She's  a  girl  who  has  to  make 
her  living,  and  she's  doing  it  in  a  new  way  that  she's 
invented  for  herself.  She  has  supposed  that  the  stupid 
rich,  or  the  lazy  rich,  who  want  to  entertain  people 
may  be  willing  to  pay  for  ideas,  and  she  proposes  to 
supply  the  ideas  for  a  money  consideration.  She's  not 
a  guest  in  the  house,  and  she  won't  take  herself  on  a 
society  basis  at  all.  I  don't  know  what  her  history  is, 

89 


FENNEL     AND     HUE 

and  I  don't  care.  She's  a  lady  by  training,  and,  if  she 
had  the  accent,  I  should  say  she  was  from  the  South, 
for  she  has  the  enterprise  of  the  South  that  comes 
North  and  tries  to  make  its  living.  It's  all  inex 
pressibly  none  of  my  business,  but  I  happen  to  be 
knowing  to  so  much  of  the  case,  and  if  you're  knowing 
to  anything  else,  Mr.  Bushwick,  I  want  you  to  get  it 
straight.  That's  why  I'm  talking  of  it,  and  not  because 
I  think  you've  any  right  to  know  anything  about  it." 

"  Thank  you,"  Bushwick  returned,  unruffled.  "  It's 
about  what  Miss  Macroyd  told  me.  That's  the  reason 
I  don't  want  the  ghost-dance  to  fail." 

Verrian  did  not  notice  him.  He  found  it  more  im 
portant  to  say :  "  She's  so  loyal  to  Mrs.  Westangle  that 
she  wouldn't  have  wished,  in  Mrs.  Westangle's  inter 
est,  to  have  her  presence,  or  her  agency  in  what  is  going 
on,  known;  but,  of  course,  if  Mrs.  Westangle  chooses 
to  tell  it,  that's  her  affair." 

"  She  would  have  had  to  tell  it,  sooner  or  later,  Mrs. 
Westangle  would ;  and  she  only  told  it  to  Miss  Macroyd 
this  afternoon  on  compulsion,  after  Miss  Macroyd  and 
I  had  seen  you  in  the  wood-road,  and  Mrs.  Westangle 
had  to  account  for  the  young  lady's  presence  there  in 
your  company.  Then  Miss  Macroyd  had  to  tell  me; 
but  I  assure  you,  my  dear  fellow,  the  matter  hasn't 
gone  any  further." 

"  Oh,  it's  quite  indifferent  to  me,"  Verrian  retorted. 
"  I'm  nothing  but  a  dispassionate  witness  of  the  situa 
tion." 

"  Of  course,"  Bushwick  assented,  and  then  he  added, 
with  a  bonhomie  really  so  amiable  that  a  man  with  even 
an  unreasonable  grudge  could  hardly  resist  it,  "  If 
you  call  it  dispassionate." 

Verrian  could  not  help  laughing.  "  Well,  passion 
ate,  then.  I  don't  know  why  it  should  be  so  conf ounded- 

90 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

ly  vexatious.     But  somehow  I  would  have  chosen  Miss 
Macroyd —    Is  she  specially  dear  to  you?" 

"Not  the  least!" 

"  I  would  have  chosen  her  as  the  last  person  to  have 
the  business,  which  is  so  inexpressibly  none  of  my 
business — " 

"  Or  mine,  as  I  think  you  remarked,"  Bushwick  in 
terposed. 

"  Come  out  through,"  Verrian  concluded,  accepting 
his  interposition  with  a  bow. 

"  I  see  what  you  mean,"  Bushwick  said,  after  a 
moment's  thought.  "  But,  really,  I  don't  think  it's  likely 
to  go  further.  If  you  want  to  know,  I  believe  Miss 
Macroyd  feels  the  distinction  of  being  in  the  secret  so 
much  that  she'll  prefer  to  hint  round  till  Mrs.  West- 
angle  gives  the  thing  away.  She  had  to  tell  me,  be 
cause  I  was  there  with  her  when  she  saw  you  with  the 
young  lady,  to  keep  me  from  going  with  my  curiosity 
to  you.  Come,  I  do  think  she's  honest  about  it." 

"  Don't  you  think  they're  rather  more  dangerous 
when  they're  honest  ?" 

"  Well,  only  when  they're  obliged  to  be.  Cheer  up ! 
I  don't  believe  Miss  Macroyd  is  one  to  spoil  sport." 

"  Oh,  I  think  I  shall  live  through  it,"  Verrian  said, 
rather  stiffening  again.  But  he  relaxed,  in  rising  from 
his  chair,  and  said,  "  Well,  good-night,  old  fellow.  I 
believe  I  shall  go  to  bed  now." 

"  You  won't  wait  for  me  till  my  pipe's  out  ?" 

"  No,  I  think  not.  I  seem  to  be  just  making  it,  and 
if  I  waited  I  might  lose  my  grip."  He  offered  Bush 
wick  a  friendly  hand. 

"  Do  you  suppose  it's  been  my  soothing  conversation  ? 
I'm  like  the  actor  that  the  doctor  advised  to  go  and 
see  himself  act.  I  can't  talk  myself  sleepy." 

"  You  might  try  it,"  Verrian  said,  going  out. 

91 


XVIII 

THE  men  who  had  talked  of  going  away  on  Thursday 
seemed  to  have  found  it  practicable  to  stay.  At  any 
rate,  they  were  all  there  on  the  Saturday  night  for  the 
ghost-seeing,  and,  of  course,  none  of  the  women  had 
gone.  What  was  more  remarkable,  in  a  house  rather 
full  of  girls,  nobody  was  sick;  or,  at  least,  everybody 
was  well  enough  to  be  at  dinner,  and,  after  dinner,  at 
the  dance,  which  impatiently,  if  a  little  ironically, 
preceded  the  supernatural  part  of  the  evening's  amuse 
ment.  It  was  the  decorum  of  a  woman  who  might  have 
been  expected  not  to  have  it  that  Mrs.  Westangle  had 
arranged  that  the  evening's  amusement  should  not  pass 
the  bound  between  Saturday  night  and  Sunday  morn 
ing.  The  supper  was  to  be  later,  but  that  was  like  other 
eating  and  drinking  on  the  Sabbath;  and  it  was  to  be 
a  cold  supper. 

At  half-past  ten  the  dancing  stopped  in  the  foyer  and 
the  drawing-room,  and  by  eleven  the  guests  were  all 
seated  fronting  the  closed  doors  of  the  library.  There 
were  not  so  many  of  them  but  that  in  the  handsome 
space  there  was  interval  enough  to  lend  a  desired  dis 
tance  to  the  apparitions ;  and  when  the  doors  were  slid 
aside  it  was  applausively  found  that  there  was  a  veil 
of  gauze  falling  from  the  roof  to  the  floor,  which  prom 
ised  its  aid  in  heightening  the  coming  mystery.  This 
was  again  heightened  by  the  universal  ignorance  as  to 
how  the  apparitions  were  to  make  their  advents  and 
on  what  terms. 

92 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

It  was  with  an  access  of  a  certain  nervous  anxiety  that 
Verrian  found  himself  next  Miss  Macroyd,  whose  frank 
good  -  fellowship  first  expressed  itself  in  a  pleasure  at 
the  chance  which  he  did  not  share,  and  then  extended 
to  a  confidential  sympathy  for  the  success  of  the  enter 
prise  which  he  did  not  believe  she  felt.  She  laughed, 
but  sotto  voce,  in  bending  her  head  close  to  his  and 
whispering,  "  I  hope  she'll  be  equal  to  her  mise  en  scene. 
It's  really  very  nice.  So  simple."  Besides  the  gauze 
veil,  there  was  no  preparation  except  in  the  stretch  of 
black  drapery  which  hid  the  book-shelves  at  the  farther 
wall  of  the  library. 

"  Mrs.  Westangle's  note  is  always  simplicity,"  Ver 
rian  returned. 

"  Oh  yes,  indeed !  And  you  wish  to  keep  up  the  West- 
angle  convention  ?" 

"  I  don't  see  any  reason  for  dropping  it." 

"  Oh,  none  in  the  world,"  she  mocked. 

He  determined  to  push  her,  since  she  had  tried  to 
push  him,  and  he  asked,  "  What  reason  could  there  be  ?" 

"  Now,  Mr.  Verrian,  asking  a  woman  for  a  reason ! 
I  shall  begin  to  think  some  one  else  wrote  your  book, 
too !  Perhaps  she'll  take  up  supplying  ideas  to  authors 
as  well  as  hostesses.  Of  course,  I  mean  Mrs.  West- 
angle." 

Verrian  wished  he  had  not  tried  to  push  Miss  Mac- 
royd,  and  he  was  still  grinding  his  teeth  in  a  vain 
endeavor  to  get  out  some  fit  retort  between  them,  when 
he  saw  Bushwick  shuffling  to  his  feet,  in  the  front  row 
of  the  spectators,  and  heard  him  beginning  a  sort  of 
speech. 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen :  Mrs.  Westangle  has  chosen 
me,  because  a  real  -  estate  broker  is  sometimes  an 
auctioneer,  and  may  be  supposed  to  have  the  gift  of 
oratory,  to  make  known  the  conditions  on  which  you 

93 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

may  interview  the  ghosts  which  you  are  going  to  see. 
Anybody  may  do  it  who  will  comply  with  the  condi 
tions.  In  the  first  place,  you  have  got  to  be  serious,  and 
to  think  up  something  that  you  would  really  like  to 
know  about  your  past,  present,  or  future.  Remember, 
this  is  no  joking  matter,  and  the  only  difference  between 
the  ghost  that  you  will  see  here  and  a  real  materializa 
tion  under  professional  auspices  is  that  the  ghost  won't 
charge  you  anything.  Of  course,  if  any  lady  or  gentle 
man  —  especially  lady  —  wishes  to  contribute  to  any 
charitable  object,  after  a  satisfactory  interview  with  the 
ghost,  a  hat  will  be  found  at  the  hall-door  for  the  pur 
pose,  and  Mrs.  Westangle  will  choose  the  object:  I  have 
put  in  a  special  plea  for  my  own  firm,  at  a  season  when 
the  real-estate  business  is  not  at  its  best.'7  By  this  time 
Bushwick  had  his  audience  laughing,  perhaps  the  more 
easily  because  they  were  all  more  or  less  in  a  hysterical 
mood,  which,  whether  we  own  it  or  not,  is  always  in 
duced  by  an  approximation  to  the  supernatural.  He 
frowned  and  said,  "  No  laughing !"  and  then  they 
laughed  the  more.  When  he  had  waited  for  them  to  be 
quiet  he  went  on  gravely,  "  The  conditions  are  simply 
these:  Each  person  who  chooses  may  interview  the 
ghost,  keeping  a  respectful  distance,  but  not  so  far  off 
but  that  the  ghost  can  distinctly  hear  a  stage  whisper. 
The  question  put  must  be  seriously  meant,  and  it  must 
be  the  question  which  the  questioner  would  prefer  to 
have  answered  above  everything  else  at  the  time  being. 
Certain  questions  will  be  absolutely  ruled  out,  such  as, 
'  Does  Maria  love  me  ?'  or,  '  Has  Reuben  ever  been 
engaged  before  ?'  The  laughter  interrupted  the  speaker 
again,  and  Verrian  hung  his  head  in  rage  and  shame ; 
this  stupid  ass  was  spoiling  the  hope  of  anything 
beautiful  in  the  spectacle  and  turning  it  into  a  gross 
burlesque.  Somehow  he  felt  that  the  girl  who  had  in- 

94 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

vented  it  had  meant,  in  the  last  analysis,  something 
serious,  and  it  was  in  her  behalf  that  he  would  have 
liked  to  choke  Bushwick.  All  the  time  he  believed  that 
Miss  Macroyd,  whose  laugh  sounded  above  the  others, 
was  somehow  enjoying  his  indignation  and  divining 
its  reason. 

"  Other  questions,  touching  intemperance  or  divorce, 
the  questioner  will  feel  must  not  be  asked;  though  it 
isn't  necessary  to  more  than  suggest  this,  I  hope;  it 
will  be  left  entirely  to  the  good  taste  and  good  feeling 
of  the — party.  We  all  know  what  the  temptations  of 
South  Dakota  and  the  rum  fiend  are,  and  that  to  err 
is  human,  and  forgive  divine."  He  paused,  having 
failed  to  get  a  laugh,  but  got  it  by  asking,  confidentially, 
"  Where  was  I  ?  Oh !" — he  caught  himself  up — "  I  re 
member.  Those  of  you  who  are  in  the  habit  of  seeing 
ghosts  need  not  be  told  that  a  ghost  never  speaks  first ; 
and  those  who  have  never  met  an  apparition  before, 
but  are  in  the  habit  of  going  to  the  theatre,  will  recall 
the  fact  that  in  W.  Shakespeare's  beautiful  play  of 
'  Hamlet '  the  play  could  not  have  gone  on  after  the  first 
scene  if  Horatio  had  not  spoken  to  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's 
father  and  taken  the  chances  of  being  snubbed.  Here 
there  are  no  chances  of  that  kind ;  the  chances  are  that 
you'll  wish  the  ghost  had  not  been  entreated:  I  think 
that  is  the  phrase." 

In  the  laugh  that  followed  a  girl  on  Miss  Macroyd's 
other  hand  audibly  asked  her,  "  Oh,  isn't  he  too  funny  ?" 

"  Delicious !"  Miss  Macroyd  agreed.  Verrian  felt 
she  said  it  to  vex  him,. 

"  Now,  there's  just  one  other  point,"  Bushwick  re 
sumed,  "  and  then  I  have  done.  Only  one  question  can 
be  allowed  to  each  person,  but  if  the  questioner  is  a 
lady  she  can  ask  a  question  and  a  half,  provided  she 
is  not  satisfied  with  the  answer.  In  this  case,  however, 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

she  will  only  get  half  an  answer.  Now  I  have  done, 
and  if  my  arguments  have  convinced  any  one  within  the 
sound  of  my  voice  that  our  ghost  really  means  busi 
ness,  I  shall  feel  fully  repaid  for  the  pains  and  expense 
of  getting  up  these  few  impromptu  remarks,  to  which 
I  have  endeavored  to  give  a  humorous  character,  in 
order  that  you  may  all  laugh  your  laugh  out,  and  no 
unseemly  mirth  may  interrupt  the  subsequent  pro 
ceedings.  We  will  now  have  a  little  music,  and  those 
who  can  recall  my  words  will  be  allowed  to  sing  them." 

In  the  giggling  and  chatter  which  ensued  the  chords 
softly  played  passed  into  ears  that  might  as  well  have 
been  deaf ;  but  at  last  there  was  a  general  quiescence  of 
expectation,  in  which  every  one's  eyes  were  strained  to 
pierce  through  the  gauze  curtain  to  the  sombre  drapery 
beyond.  The  wait  was  so  long  that  the  tension  relaxed 
and  a  whispering  began,  and  Verrian  felt  a  sickness  of 
pity  for  the  girl  who  was  probably  going  to  make  a  fail 
ure  of  it.  He  asked  himself  what  could  have  happened 
to  her.  Had  she  lost  courage  ?  Or  had  her  physical 
strength,  not  yet  fully  renewed,  given  way  under  the 
stress  ?  Or  had  she,  in  sheer  disgust  for  the  turn  the 
affair  had  been  given  by  that  brute  Bushwick,  thrown 
up  the  whole  business  ?  He  looked  round  for  Mrs.  West- 
angle  ;  she  was  not  there ;  he  conjectured — he  could  only 
conjecture — that  she  was  absent  conferring  with  Miss 
Shirley  and  trying  to  save  the  day. 

A  long,  deeply  sighed  "  Oh-h-h-h !"  shuddering  from 
many  lips  made  him  turn  abruptly,  and  he  saw,  glim 
mering  against  the  pall  at  the  bottom  of  the  darkened 
library,  a  figure  vaguely  white,  in  which  he  recognized 
a  pose,  a  gesture  familiar  to  him.  For  the  others  the 
figure  was  It,  but  for  him  it  was  preciously  She.  It 
was  she,  and  she  was  going  to  carry  it  through ;  she  was 
going  to  triumph,  and  not  fail.  A  lump  came  into  his 

96 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

throat,  and  a  mist  blurred  his  eyes,  which,  when  it 
cleared  again,  left  him  staring  at  nothing. 

A  girl's  young  voice  uttered  the  common  feeling, 
"Why,  is  that  all?" 

"  It  is,  till  some  one  asks  the  ghost  a  question ;  then 
it  will  reappear,"  Bushwick  rose  to  say.  "  Will  Miss 
Andrews  kindly  step  forward  and  ask  the  question  near 
est  her  heart?" 

"  Oh  no !"  the  girl  answered,  with  a  sincerity  that 
left  no  one  quite  free  to  laugh. 

"  Some  other  lady,  then  ?"  Bushwick  suggested.  No 
one  moved,  and  he  added,  "  This  is  a  difficulty  which 
had  been  foreseen.  Some  gentleman  will  step  forward 
and  put  the  question  next  Ms  heart."  Again  no  one 
offered  to  go  forward,  and  there  was  some  muted  laugh 
ter,  which  Bushwick  checked.  "  This  difficulty  had 
been  foreseen,  too.  I  see  that  I  shall  have  to  make  the 
first  move,  and  all  that  I  shall  require  of  the  audience 
is  that  I  shall  not  be  supposed  to  be  in  collusion  with  the 
illusion.  I  hope  that  after  my  experience,  whatever 
it  is,  some  young  woman  of  courage  will  follow." 

He  passed  into  the  foyer,  and  from  that  came  into 
the  library,  where  he  showed  against  the  dark  back 
ground  in  an  attitude  of  entreaty  slightly  burlesqued. 
The  ghost  reappeared. 

"  Shall  I  marry  the  woman  I  am  thinking  of  ?"  he 
asked. 

The  phantom  seemed  to  hesitate;  it  wavered  like  a 
pale  reflection  cast  against  the  pall.  Then,  in  the  tones 
which  Verrian  knew,  the  answer  came: 

"  Ask  her.    She  will  tell  you." 

The  phantom  had  scored  a  hit,  and  the  applause 
was  silenced  with  difficulty ;  but  Verrian  felt  that  Miss 
Shirley  had  lost  ground.  It  could  not  have  been  for 
the  easy  cleverness  of  such  a  retort  that  she  had  planned 

97 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

the  affair.  Yet,  why  not?  He  was  taking  it  too  seri 
ously.  It  was  merely  business  with  her. 

"  And  I  haven't  even  the  right  to  half  a  question 
more!"  Bushwick  lamented,  in  a  dramatized  dejection, 
and  crossed  slowly  back  from  the  library  to  his  place. 

"  Why,  haven't  you  got  enough  ?"  one  of  the  men 
asked,  amidst  the  gay  clamor  of  the  women. 

The  ghost  was  gone  again,  and  its  evanescence  was 
discussed  with  ready  wonder.  Another  of  the  men  went 
round  to  tempt  his  fate,  and  the  phantom  suddenly  re 
appeared  so  near  him  that  he  got  a  laugh  by  his  start 
of  dismay.  "  I  forgot  what  I  was  going  to  ask,  he 
faltered. 

"  I  know  what  it  was,"  the  apparition  answered. 
"  You  had  better  sell." 

"But  they  say  it  will  go  to  a  hundred!"  the  man 
protested. 

"  No  back  -  talk,  Eogers !"  Bushwick  interposed. 
"  That  was  the  understanding. 

"  But  we  didn't  understand,"  one  of  the  girls  said, 
coming  to  the  rescue,  "  that  the  ghost  was  going  to 
answer  questions  that  were  not  asked.  That  would  give 
us  all  away." 

"  Then  the  only  thing  is  for  you  to  go  and  ask  before 
it  gets  a  chance  to  answer,"  Bushwick  said. 

"  Well,  I  will,"  the  girl  returned.  And  she  swept 
round  into  the  library,  where  she  encountered  the  phan 
tom  with  a  little  whoop  as  it  started  into  sight  before 
her.  "  I'm  not  going  to  be  scared  out  of  it !"  she  said, 
defiantly.  "  It's  simply  this :  Did  the  person  I  sus 
pect  really  take  the  ring  ?" 

The  answer  came,  "  Look  on  the  floor  under  your 
dressing-table !" 

"  Well,  if  I  find  it  there,"  the  girl  addressed  the  com 
pany,  "  I'm  a  spiritualist  from  this  time  forth."  And 

98 


FENNEL  AND  HUE 

she  came  back  to  her  place,  where  she  remained  for 
some  time  explaining  to  those  near  how  she  had  lately 
lost  her  ring  and  suspected  her  maid,  whom  she  had  dis 
missed. 

Upon  the  whole,  the  effect  was  serious.  The  women, 
having  once  started,  needed  no  more  urging.  One  after 
another  they  confronted  and  questioned  the  oracle  with 
increasing  sincerity. 

Miss  Macroyd  asked  Verrian,  "  Hadn't  you  better 
take  your  chance  and  stop  this  flow  of  fatuity,  Mr. 
Verrian?" 

"  I'm  afraid  I  should  be  fatuous,  too,"  he  said.  "  But 
you?" 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  I  don't  believe  in  ghosts,  though  this 
seems  to  be  a  very  pretty  one — very  graceful,  I  mean. 
I  suppose  a  graceful  woman  would  be  graceful  even 
when  a  disembodied  spirit.  I  should  think  she  would 
be  getting  a  little  tried  with  all  this  questioning;  but 
perhaps  we're  only  reading  the  fatigue  into  her.  The 
ghost  may  be  merely  overdone." 

"  It  might  easily  be  that,"  Verrian  assented. 

"  Oh,  may  I  ask  it  something  now  ?"  a  girl's  voice 
appealed  to  Bushwick.  It  was  the  voice  of  that  Miss 
Andrews  who  had  spoken  first,  and  first  refused  to 
question  the  ghost.  She  was  the  youngest  of  Mrs. 
Westangle's  guests,  and  Verrian  had  liked  her,  with  a 
sense  of  something  precious  in  the  prolongation  of  a 
child's  unconsciousness  into  the  consciousness  of  girl 
hood  which  he  found  in  her.  She  was  always  likelier 
than  not  to  say  the  thing  she  thought  and  felt,  whether 
it  was  silly  and  absurd,  or  whether,  as  also  happened, 
there  was  a  touch  of  inspired  significance  in  it,  as  there 
is  apt  to  be  in  the  talk  of  children.  She  was  laughed 
at,  but  she  was  liked,  and  the  freshness  of  her  soul  was 
pleasant  to  the  girls  who  were  putting  oil  the  world 
8  99 


FENNEL  AND  KUE 

as  hard  as  they  could.  She  could  be  trusted  to  do  and 
say  the  unexpected.  But  she  was  considered  a  little 
morbid,  and  certainly  she  had  an  exaltation  of  the 
nerves  that  was  at  times  almost  beyond  her  control. 

"  Oh,  dear !"  Miss  Macroyd  whispered.  "  What  is 
that  strange  simpleton  going  to  do,  I  wonder  ?" 

Verrian  did  not  feel  obliged  to  answer  a  ques 
tion  not  addressed  to  him,  but  he,  too,  wondered  and 
doubted. 

The  girl,  having  got  her  courage  together,  fluttered 
with  it  from  her  place  round  to  the  ghost's  in  a  haste 
that  expressed  a  fear  that  it  might  escape  her  if  she 
delayed  to  put  it  to  the  test.  The  phantom  was  al 
ready  there,  as  if  it  had  waited  her  in  the  curiosity  that 
followed  her.  They  were  taking  each  other  seriously, 
the  girl  and  the  ghost,  and  if  the  ghost  had  been  a 
veridical  phantom,  in  which  she  could  have  believed 
with  her  whole  soul,  the  girl  could  not  have  entreated 
it  more  earnestly,  more  simply. 

She  bent  forward,  in  her  slim,  tall  figure,  with  her 
hands  outstretched,  and  with  her  tender  voice  breaking 
at  times  in  her  entreaty.  "  Oh,  I  don't  know  how  to 
begin,"  she  said,  quite  as  if  she  and  the  phantom  were 
alone  together,  and  she  had  forgotten  its  supernatural 
awfulness  in  a  sense  of  its  human  quality.  "  But  you 
will  understand,  won't  you!  You'll  think  it  very 
strange,  and  it  is  very  unlike  the  others;  but  if  I'm 
going  to  be  serious —  " 

The  white  figure  stood  motionless;  but  Verrian  in 
terpreted  its  quiet  as  a  kindly  intelligence,  and  the  girl 
made  a  fresh  start  in  a  note  a  little  more  piteous  than 
before.  "  It's  about  the — the  truth.  Do  you  think  if 
sometimes  we  don't  tell  it  exactly,  but  we  wish  we  had 
very,  very  much,  it  will  come  round  somehow  the  same 
as  if  we  had  told  it?" 

100 


VERRIAN    ROSE    AWKWARDLY    AND    STOOD    A    LONG    MOMENT 
HEFORE    HIS    CHAIR" 


FENNEL     AND 

"  I  don't  understand,"  the  phantom  answered.  "  Say 
it  again — or  differently." 

"  Can  our  repentance  undo  it,  or  make  the  falsehood 
over  into  the  truth?" 

"  Never !"  the  ghost  answered,  with  a  passion  that 
thrilled  to  Verrian's  heart. 

"  Oh,  dear !"  the  girl  said ;  and  then,  as  if  she  had 
been  going  to  continue,  she  stopped. 

"  You've  still  got  your  half-question,  Miss  Andrews," 
Bushwick  interposed. 

"  Even  if  we  didn't  mean  it  to  deceive  harmfully  ?" 
the  girl  pursued.  "  If  it  was  just  on  impulse,  some 
thing  we  couldn't  seem  to  help,  and  we  didn't  see  it  in  its 
true  light  at  the  time —  " 

The  ghost  made  no  answer.     It  stood  motionless. 

"  It  is  offended,"  Bushwick  said,  without  knowing  the 
Shakespearian  words.  "  You've  asked  it  three  times 
half  a  question,  Miss  Andrews.  Now,  Mr.  Verrian,  it's 
your  turn.  You  can  ask  it  just  one-quarter  of  a  ques 
tion.  Miss  Andrews  has  used  up  the  rest  of  your  share." 

Verrian  rose  awkwardly  and  stood  a  long  moment 
before  his  chair.  Then  he  dropped  back  again,  saying, 
dryly,  "  I  don't  think  I  want  to  ask  it  anything." 

The  phantom  sank  straight  down  as  if  sinking  through 
the  floor,  bat  lay  there  like  a  white  shawl  trailed  along 
the  bottom  of  the  dark  curtain. 

"  And  is  that  all  ?"  Miss  Macroyd  asked  Verrian. 
"  I  was  just  getting  up  my  courage  to  go  forward.  But 
now,  I  suppose —  " 

"  Oh,  dear !"  Miss  Andrews  called  out.  "  Perhaps 
it's  fainted.  Hadn't  we  better —  " 

There  were  formless  cries  from  the  women,  and  the 
men  made  a  crooked  rush  forward,  in  which  Verrian 
did  not  join.  He  remained  where  he  had  risen,  with 
Miss  Macroyd  beside  him. 

101 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

"  Perhaps  it's  only  a  coup  de  theatre !"  she  said,  with 
her  laugh.  "  Better  wait." 

Bushwick  was  gathering  the  prostrate  figure  up. 
"  She  lias  fainted !"  he  called.  "  Get  some  water,  some 
body!" 


XIX 

THE  early  Monday  morning  train  which  brought 
Verrian  up  to  town  was  so  very  early  that  he  could 
sit  down  to  breakfast  with  his  mother  only  a  little 
later  than  their  usual  hour. 

She  had  called  joyfully  to  him  from  her  room,  when 
she  heard  the  rattling  of  his  key  as  he  let  himself  into 
the  apartment,  and,  after  an  exchange  of  greetings, 
shouted  back  and  forth  before  they  saw  each  other,  they 
could  come  at  once  to  the  history  of  his  absence  over 
their  coffee.  "  You  must  have  had  a  very  good  time,  to 
stay  so  long.  After  you  wrote  that  you  would  not  be 
back  Thursday,  I  expected  it  would  be  Saturday  till  I 
got  your  telegram.  But  I'm  glad  you  stayed.  You  cer 
tainly  needed  the  rest." 

"  Yes,  if  those  things  are  ever  a  rest."  He  looked 
down  at  his  cup  while  he  stirred  the  coffee  in  it,  and 
she  studied  his  attitude,  since  she  could  not  see  his 
f^ace  fully,  for  the  secret  of  any  vital  change  that  might 
have  come  upon  him.  It  could  be  that  in  the  interval 
since  she  had  seen  him  he  had  seen  the  woman  who 
was  to  take  him  from  her.  She  was  always  preparing 
herself  for  that,  knowing  that  it  must  comte  almost  as 
certainly  as  death,  and  knowing  that  with  all  her  prepa 
ration  she  should  not  be  ready  for  it.  "  I've  got  rather 
a  long  story  to  tell  you  and  rather  a  strange  story,"  he 
said,  lifting  his  head  and  looking  round,  but  not  so 
impersonally  that  his  mother  did  not  know  well  enough 
to  say  to  the  Swedish  serving-woman : 

103 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

"  You  needn't  stay,  Margit.  I'll  give  Mr.  Philip 
his  breakfast.  Well !"  she  added,  when  they  were  alone. 

"  Well/'  he  returned,  with  a  smile  that  she  knew 
he  was  forcing,  "  I  have  seen  the  girl  that  wrote  that 
letter." 

"  Not  Jerusha  Brown  ?" 

"  Not  Jerusha  Brown,  but  the  girl  all  the  same." 

"  Now  go  on,  Philip,  and  don't  miss  a  single  word !" 
she  commanded  him,  with  an  imperious  breathlessness. 
"  You  know  I  won't  hurry  you  or  interrupt  you,  but 
you  must — you  really  must — tell  me  everything.  Don't 
leave  out  the  slightest  detail." 

"  I  won't,"  he  said.  But  she  was  aware,  from  time 
to  time,  that  she  was  keeping  her  word  better  than  he 
was  keeping  his,  in  his  account  of  meeting  Miss  Shir 
ley  and  all  the  following  events. 

"  You  can  imagine,"  he  said,  "  what  a  sensation  the 
swooning  made,  and  the  commotion  that  followed  it." 

"  Yes,  I  can  imagine  that,"  she  answered.  But  she 
was  yet  so  faithful  that  she  would  not  ask  him  to  go  on. 

He  continued,  unasked,  "  I  don't  know  just  how, 
now,  to  account  for  its  coming  into  my  head  that  it  was 
Miss  Andrews  who  was  my  unknown  correspondent. 
I  suppose  I've  always  unconsciously  expected  to  meet 
that  girl,  and  Miss  Andrews's  hypothetical  case  was 
psychologically  so  parallel — " 

"Yes,  yes!" 

"  And  I've  sometimes  been  afraid  that  I  judged  it 
too  harshly — that  it  was  a  mere  girlish  freak  without 
any  sort  of  serious  import." 

"  I  was  sometimes  afraid  so,  Philip.    But — " 

"  And  I  don't  believe  now  that  the  hypothetical  case 
brought  any  intolerable  stress  of  conscience  upon  Miss 
Shirley,  or  that  she  fainted  from  any  cause  but  ex 
haustion  from  the  general  ordeal.  She  was  still  weak 

104 


FENNEL     AND     HUE 

from  the  sickness  she  had  been  through — too  weak  to 
bear  the  strain  of  the  work  she  had  taken  up.  Of 
course,  the  catastrophe  gave  the  whole  surface  situa 
tion  away,  and  I  must  say  that  those  rather  banal  young 
people  behaved  very  humanely  about  it.  There  was 
nothing  but  interest  of  the  nicest  kind,  and,  if  she  is 
going  on  with  her  career,  it  will  be  easy  enough  for 
her  to  find  engagements  after  this." 

"  Why  shouldn't  she  go  on  ?"  his  mother  asked,  with 
a  suspicion  which  she  kept  well  out  of  sight. 

"  Well,  as  well  as  she  could  explain  afterwards,  the 
catastrophe  took  her  work  out  of  the  category  of  busi 
ness  and  made  her  acceptance  in  it  a  matter  of  senti 
ment." 

"  She  explained  it  to  you  herself  ?" 

"  Yes,  the  general  sympathy  had  penetrated  to  Mrs. 
Westangle,  though  I  don't  say  that  she  had  been  more 
than  negatively  indifferent  to  Miss  Shirley's  claim  on 
her  before.  As  it  was,  she  sent  for  me  to  her  room  the 
next  morning,  and  I  found  Miss  Shirley  alone  there. 
She  said  Mrs.  Westangle  would  be  down  in  a  mo 
ment." 

Now,  indeed,  Mrs.  Verrian  could  not  govern  herself 
from  saying,  "  I  don't  like  it,  Philip." 

"  I  knew  you  wouldn't.  It  was  what  I  said  to  my 
self  at  the  time.  You  were  so  present  with  me  that 
I  seemed  to  have  you  there  chaperoning  the  interview." 
His  mother  shrugged,  and  he  went  on :  "  She  said  she 
wished  to  tell  me  something  first,  and  then  she  said, 
'  I  want  to  do  it  while  I  have  the  courage,  if  it's  cour 
age;  perhaps  it's  just  desperation.  I  am  Jerusha 
Brown.'" 

His  mother  began,  "  But  you  said — "  and  then  stop 
ped  herself. 

"  I  know  that  I  said  she  wasn't,  but  she  explained, 
105 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

while  I  sat  there  rather  mum,  that  there  was  really  an 
other  girl,  and  that  the  other  girl's  name  was  really 
Jerusha  Brown.  She  was  the  daughter  of  the  post 
master  in  the  village  where  Miss  Shirley  was  passing 
the  ail-miner.  In  fact,  Miss  Shirley  was  boarding  in 
the  postmaster's  family,  and  the  girls  had  become  very 
friendly.  They  were  reading  my  story  together, 
and  talking  about  it,  and  trying  to  guess  how  it 
would  come  out,  just  as  the  letter  said,  and  they  simul 
taneously  hit  upon  the  notion  of  writing  to  me.  It 
seemed  to  them  that  it  would  be  a  good  joke — I'm  not 
defending  it,  mother,  and  I  must  say  Miss  Shirley 
didn't  defend  it,  either — to  work  upon  my  feelings  in 
the  way  they  tried,  and  they  didn't  realize  what  they 
had  done  till  Armiger's  letter  came.  It  almost  drove 
them  wild,  she  said ;  but  they  had  a  lucid  interval,  and 
they  took  the  letter  to  the  girl's  father  and  told  him 
what  they  had  done.  He  was  awfully  severe  with  them 
for  their  foolishness,  and  said  they  must  write  to 
Armiger  at  once  and  confess  the  fact.  Then  they  said 
they  had  written  already,  and  showed  him  the  second 
letter,  and  explained  they  had  decided  to  let  Miss  Brown 
write  it  in  her  person  alone  for  the  reason  she  gave  in  it. 
But  Miss  Shirley  told  him  she  was  ready  to  take  her 
full  share  of  the  blame,  and,  if  anything  came  of  it, 
she  authorized  him  to  put  the  whole  blame  on  her." 

Verrian  made  a  pause  which  his  mother  took  for  in 
vitation  or  permission  to  ask,  "  And  was  he  satisfied 
with  that  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.  I  wasn't,  and  it's  only  just  to  Miss 
Shirley  to  say  that  she  wasn't,  either.  She  didn't  try 
to  justify  it  to  me;  she  merely  said  she  was  so  fright 
ened  that  she  couldn't  have  done  anything.  She  may 
have  realized  more  than  the  Brown  girl  what  they  had 
done." 

106 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  The  postmaster,  did  he  regard  it  as  anything  worse 
than  foolishness?" 

"  I  don't  believe  he  did.  At  any  rate,  he  was  satis 
fied  with  what  his  daughter  had  done  in  owning  up." 

"  Well,  I  always  liked  that  girl's  letter.  And  did 
they  show  him  your  letter  ?" 

"  It  seems  that  they  did." 

"  And  what  did  he  say  about  that  ?" 

"  I  suppose,  what  I  deserved.  Miss  Shirley  wouldn't 
say,  explicitly.  He  wanted  to  answer  it,  but  they 
wouldn't  let  him.  I  don't  know  but  I  should  feel  bet 
ter  if  he  had.  I  haven't  been  proud  of  that  letter  of 
mine  as  time  has  gone  on,  mother;  I  think  I  behaved 
very  narrow-mindedly,  very  personally  in  it." 

"  You  behaved  justly." 

"  Justly  ?  I  thought  you  had  your  doubts  of  that. 
At  any  rate,  /  had  when  it  came  to  hearing  the  girl 
accusing  herself  as  if  she  had  been  guilty  of  some 
monstrous  wickedness,  and  I  realized  that  I  had  made 
her  feel  so." 

"  She  threw  herself  on  your  pity !" 

"  No,  she  didn't,  mother.  Don't  make  it  impossible 
for  me  to  tell  you  just  how  it  was." 

"  I  won't.    Goon." 

"  I  don't  say  she  was  manly  about  it ;  that  couldn't 
be,  but  she  was  certainly  not  throwing  herself  on  my 
pity,  unless — unless — " 

"What?" 

"  Unless  you  call  it  so  for  her  to  say  that  she  wanted 
to  own  up  to  me,  because  she  could  have  no  rest  till  she 
had  done  so ;  she  couldn't  put  it  behind  her  till  she  had 
acknowledged  it;  she  couldn't  work;  she  couldn't  get 
well." 

He  saw  his  mother  trying  to  consider  it  fairly,  and 
in  response  he  renewed  his  own  resolution  not  to  make 

107 


FENNEL  AND  HUE 

himself  the  girl's  advocate  with  her,  but  to  continue  the 
dispassionate  historian  of  the  case.  At  the  same  time 
his  memory  was  filled  with  the  vision  of  how  she  had 
done  and  said  the  things  he  was  telling,  with  what 
pathos,  with  what  grace,  with  what  beauty  in  her  ap 
peal.  He  saw  the  tears  that  came  into  her  eyes  at 
times  and  that  she  indignantly  repressed  as  she  hur 
ried  on  in  the  confession  which  she  was  voluntarily 
making,  for  there  was  no  outward  stress  upon  her  to 
say  anything.  He  felt  again  the  charm  of  the  situa 
tion,  the  sort  of  warmth  and  intimacy,  but  he  resolved 
not  to  let  that  feeling  offset  the  impartiality  of  his 
story. 

"  No,  I  don't  say  she  threw  herself  on  your  mercy," 
his  mother  said,  finally.  "  She  needn't  have  told  you 
anything." 

"  Except  for  the  reason  she  gave — that  she  couldn't 
make  a  start  for  herself  till  she  had  done  so.  And 
she  has  got  her  own  way  to  make;  she  is  poor.  Of 
course,  you  may  say  her  motive  was  an  obsession,  and 
not  a  reason." 

"  There's  reality  in  it,  whatever  it  is ;  it's  a  genuine 
motive,"  Mrs.  Yerrian  conceded. 

"  I  think  so,"  Verrian  said,  in  a  voice  which  he  tried 
to  keep  from  sounding  too  grateful. 

Apparently  his  mother  did  not  find  it  so.  She  asked, 
"  What  had  been  the  matter  with  her,  did  she  say  ?" 

"  In  her  long  sickness  ?  Oh !  A  nervous  fever  of 
some  sort." 

"  From  worrying  about  that  experience  ?" 

Yerrian  reluctantly  admitted,  "  She  said  it  made  her 
want  to  die.  I  don't  suppose  we  can  quite  realize —  " 

"  We  needn't  believe  everything  she  said  to  realize 
that  she  suffered.  But  girls  exaggerate  their  sufferings. 
I  suppose  you  told  her  not  to  think  of  it  any  more  ?" 

108 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

Verrian  gave  an  odd  laugh.  "  Well,  not  uncondi 
tionally.  I  tried  to  give  her  my  point  of  view.  And 
I  stipulated  that  she  should  tell  Jerusha  Brown  all  about 
it,  and  keep  her  from  having  a  nervous  fever,  too." 

"  That  was  right.  You  must  see  that  even  cowardice 
couldn't  excuse  her  selfishness  in  letting  that  girl  take 
all  the  chances." 

"  And  I'm  afraid  I  was  not  very  unselfish  myself  in 
my  stipulations,"  Verrian  said,  with  another  laugh.  "  I 
think  that  I  wanted  to  stand  well  with  the  postmaster." 

There  was  a  note  of  cynical  ease  in  this  which  Mrs. 
Verrian  found  morally  some  octaves  lower  than  the 
pitch  of  her  son's  habitual  seriousness  in  what  con 
cerned  himself,  but  she  could  not  make  it  a  censure  to 
him.  "  And  you  were  able  to  reassure  her,  so  that  she 
needn't  think  of  it  any  more  ?" 

"  What  would  you  have  wished  me  to  do  ?"  he  re 
turned,  dryly.  "  Don't  you  think  she  had  suffered 
enough  ?" 

"  Oh,  in  this  sort  of  thing  it  doesn't  seem  the  ques 
tion  of  suffering.  If  there's  wrong  done  the  penalty 
doesn't  right  it." 

The  notion  struck  Verrian's  artistic  sense.  "  That's 
true.  That  would  make  the  donnee  of  a  strong  story. 
Or  a  play.  It's  a  drama  of  fate.  It's  Greek.  But  I 
thought  we  lived  under  another  dispensation." 

"  Will  she  try  to  get  more  of  the  kind  of  thing  she 
was  doing  for  Mrs.  Westangle  at  once?  Or  has  she 
some  people?" 

"  No ;  only  friends,  as  I  understand." 

"  Where  is  she  from  ?    Up  country  ?" 

"  No,  she's  from  the  South." 

"  I  don't  like  Southerners !" 

"  I  know  you  don't,  mother.  But  you  must  honor 
the  way  they  work  and  get  on  when  they  come  North 

109 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

and  begin  doing  for  themselves.  Besides,  Miss  Shirley's 
family  went  South  after  the  war —  " 

"  Oh,  not  even,  a  real  Southerner !" 

"Mother!" 

"  I  know !  I'm  not  fair.  I  ought  to  beg  her  pardon. 
And  I  ought  to  be  glad  it's  all  over.  Shall  you  see 
her  again  ?" 

"  It  might  happen.  But  I  don't  know  how  or  when. 
We  parted  friends,  but  we  parted  strangers,  so  far  as 
any  prevision  of  the  future  is  concerned,"  Verrian  said. 

His  mother  drew  a  long  breath,  which  she  tried  to 
render  inaudible.  "  And  the  girl  that  asked  her  the 
strange  questions,  did  you  see  her  again  ?" 

"  Oh  yes.  She  had  a  curious  fascination.  I  should 
like  to  tell  you  about  her.  Do  you  think  there's  such 
a  thing  as  a  girl's  being  too  innocent  ?" 

"  It  isn't  so  common  as  not  being  innocent  enough." 

"  But  it's  more  difficult  ?" 

"  I  hope  you'll  never  find  it  so,  my  son,"  Mrs.  Ver 
rian  said.  And  for  the  first  time  she  was  intentionally 
personal.  "  Go  on." 

"  About  Miss  Andrews  ?" 

"  Whichever  you  please." 

"  She  waylaid  me  in  the  afternoon,  as  I  was  coming 
home  from  a  walk,  and  wanted  to  talk  with  me  about 
Miss  Shirley." 

"  I  suppose  Miss  Shirley  was  the  day's  heroine  after 
what  had  happened  ?" 

"  The  half -day's,  or  quarter-day's  heroine,  perhaps. 
She  left  on  the  church  train  for  town  yesterday  morn 
ing  soon  after  I  saw  her.  Miss  Andrews  seemed  to 
think  I  was  an  authority  on  the  subject,  and  she  ap 
proached  me  with  a  large-eyed  awe  that  was  very  amus 
ing,  though  it  was  affecting,  too.  I  suppose  that  girls 
must  have  many  worships  for  other  girls  before  they 

110 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

have  any  worship  for  a  man.  This  girl  couldn't  sepa 
rate  Miss  Shirley,  on  the  lookout  for  another  engage 
ment,  from  the  psychical  part  she  had  played.  She 
raved  about  her;  she  thought  she  was  beautiful,  and 
she  wanted  to  know  all  about  her  and  how  she  could 
help  her.  Miss  Andrews's  parents  are  rich  but  respect 
able,  I  understand,  and  she's  an  only  child.  I  came 
in  for  a  share  of  her  awe ;  she  had  found  out  that  I  was 
not  only  not  Verrian  the  actor,  but  an  author  of  the 
same  name,  and  she  had  read  my  story  with  passionate 
interest,  but  apparently  in  that  unliterary  way  of  many 
people  without  noticing  who  wrote  it;  she  seemed  to 
have  thought  it  was  Harding  Davis  or  Henry  James ; 
she  wasn't  clear  which.  But  it  was  a  good  deal  to  have 
had  her  read  it  at  all  in  that  house ;  I  don't  believe  any 
body  else  had,  except  Miss  Shirley  and  Miss  Mac- 
royd." 

Mrs.  Verrian  deferred  a  matter  that  would  ordinarily 
have  interested  her  supremely  to  an  immediate  curiosity. 
"  And  how  came  she  to  think  you  would  know  so  much 
about  Miss  Shirley  ?" 

Verrian  frowned.  "  I  think  from  Miss  Macroyd. 
Miss  Macroyd  seems  to  have  taken  a  grandmotherly  con 
cern  in  my  affairs  through  the  whole  week.  Perhaps 
she  resented  having  behaved  so  piggishly  at  the  station 
the  day  we  came,  and  meant  to  take  it  out  of  Miss 
Shirley  and  myself.  She  had  seen  us  together  in  the 
woods,  one  day,  and  she  must  have  told  it  about.  Mrs. 
Westangle  wouldn't  have  spoken  of  us  together,  because 
she  never  speaks  of  anything  unless  it  is  going  to  count ; 
and  there  was  no  one  else  who  knew  of  our  acquaint 
ance." 

"Why,  my  son,  if  you  went  walking  in  the  woods 
with  the  girl,  any  one  might  have  seen  you." 

"  I  didn't.  It  was  quite  by  accident  that  we  met 
111 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

there.  Miss  Shirley  was  anxious  to  keep  her  presence 
in  the  house  a  secret  from  everybody." 

Mrs.  Verrian  would  not  take  any  but  the  open  way 
with  this.  She  would  not  deal  indirectly  with  it,  or 
in  any  wise  covertly  or  surreptitiously.  "  It  seems  to 
me  that  Miss  Shirley  has  rather  a  fondness  for  secrecy/' 
she  said. 

"  I  think  she  has,"  Yerrian  admitted.  "  Though,  in 
this  case,  it  was  essential  to  the  success  of  her  final 
scheme.  But  she  is  a  curious  study.  I  suppose  that 
timidity  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  fondness  for  secrecy, 
isn't  it  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.  She  doesn't  seem  to  be  timid  in 
everything." 

"  Say  it  out,  mother !"  Yerrian  challenged  her  with 
a  smile.  "  You're  not  timid,  anyway !" 

"  She  had  the  courage  to  join  in  that  letter,  but  not 
the  courage  to  own  her  part  in  it.  She  was  brave  enough 
to  confess  that  she  had  been  sick  of  a  nervous  fever 
from  the  answer  you  wrote  to  the  Brown  girl,  but  she 
wouldn't  have  been  brave  enough  to  confess  anything  at 
all  if  she  had  believed  she  would  be  physically  or  moral 
ly  strong  enough  to  keep  it." 

"  Perhaps  nobody  —  nobody  but  you,  mother  —  is 
brave  in  the  right  time  and  place." 

She  knew  that  this  was  not  meant  in  irony.  "  I  am 
glad  you  say  that,  Philip." 

"  It's  only  your  due.  But  aren't  you  a  little  too  hard 
upon  cowards,  at  times  ?  For  the  sort  of  person  she  is, 
if  you  infer  the  sort  from  the  worst  appearance  she 
has  made  in  the  whole  business,  I  think  she  has  done 
pretty  well." 

"  Why  had  she  left  the  Brown  girl  to  take  all  your 
resentment  alone  for  the  last  six  or  eight  months  ?" 

"  She  may  have  thought  that  she  was  getting  her  share 
112 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

of  the  punishment  in  the  fever  my  resentment  brought 
on?" 

"  Philip,  do  you  really  believe  that  her  fever,  if  she 
had  one,  came  from  that  ?" 

"  I  think  she  believes  it,  and  there's  no  doubt  but  she 
was  badly  scared." 

"  Oh,  there's  no  doubt  of  that !" 

"  But  come,  mother,  why  should  we  take  her  at  the 
worst?  Of  course,  she  has  a  complex  nature.  I  see 
that  as  clearly  as  you  do.  I  don't  believe  we  look  at 
her  diversely,  in  the  smallest  particular.  But  why 
shouldn't  a  complex  nature  be  credited  with  the  same 
impulses  towards  the  truth  as  a  single  nature?  Why 
shouldn't  we  allow  that  Miss  Shirley  had  the  same  wish 
to  set  herself  right  with  me  as  Miss  Andrews  would 
have  had  in  her  place  ?" 

"  I  dare  say  she  wished  to  set  herself  right  with  you, 
but  not  from  the  same  wish  that  Miss  Andrews  would 
have  had.  Miss  Andrews  would  not  have  wished  you 
to  know  the  truth  for  her  own  sake.  Her  motive  would 
have  been  direct — straight." 

"  Yes ;  and  we  will  describe  her  as  a  straight  line, 
and  Miss  Shirley  as  a  waving  line.  Why  shouldn't  the 
waving  line,  at  its  highest  points,  touch  the  same  alti 
tude  as  the  straight  line  ?" 

"  It  wouldn't  touch  it  all  the  time,  and  in  character, 
or  nature,  as  you  call  it,  that  is  the  great  thing.  It's 
at  the  lowest  points  that  the  waving  line  is  dangerous." 

"  Well,  I  don't  deny  that.  But  I'm  anxious  to  be 
just  to  a  person  who  hasn't  experienced  a  great  deal  of 
mercy  for  what,  after  all,  wasn't  such  a  very  heinous 
thing  as  I  used  to  think  it.  You  must  allow  that  she 
wasn't  obliged  to  tell  me  anything  about  herself." 

"  Yes,  she  was,  Philip.  As  I  said  before,  she  hadn't 
the  physical  or  moral  strength  to  keep  it  from  you  when 

113 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

she  was  brought  face  to  face  with  you.  Besides —  " 
Mrs.  Verrian  hesitated. 

"  Out  with  it,  mother !  We,  at  least,  won't  have  any 
concealments." 

"  She  may  have  thought  she  could  clinch  it  in  that 
way.77 

"Clinch  what?77 

"  You  know.    Is  she  pretty  ?" 

"  She7s— interesting.77 

"  That  can  always  be  managed.    Is  she  tall  ?" 

"  No,  I  think  she7s  rather  out  of  style  there ;  she's 
rather  petite." 

"  And  what's  her  face  like  ?" 

"  Well,  she  has  no  particular  complexion,  but  it's  not 
thick.  Her  eyes  are  the  best  of  her,  though  there  isn7t 
much  of  them.  They7re  the  '  waters  on  a  starry  night ' 
sort,  very  sweet  and  glimmering.  She  has  a  kind  of 
ground-colored  hair  and  a  nice  little  chin.  Her  mouth 
helps  her  eyes  out ;  it  looks  best  when  she  speaks ;  it's 
pathetic  in  the  play  of  the  lips." 

"  I  see,77  Mrs.  Verrian  said. 


XX 


THE  following  week  Verrian  and  his  mother  were 
at  a  show  of  paintings,  in  the  gallery  at  the  rear  of  a 
dealer's  shop,  and  while  they  were  bending  together 
to  look  at  a  picture  he  heard  himself  called  to  in  a 
girlish  voice,  "  Oh,  Mr.  Verrian !"  as  if  his  being  there 
was  the  greatest  wonder  in  the  world. 

His  mother  and  he  lifted  themselves  to  encounter  a 
tall,  slim  girl,  who  was  stretching  her  hand  towards  him, 
and  who  now  cried  out,  joyously,  "  Oh,  Mr.  Verrian, 
I  thought  it  must  be  you,  but  I  was  afraid  it  wasn't  as 
soon  as  I  spoke.  Oh,  I'm  so  glad  to  see  you;  I  want 
so  much  to  have  you  know  my  mother — Mr.  Verrian," 
she  said,  presenting  him. 

"  And  I  you  mine,"  Verrian  responded,  in  a  violent 
ellipse,  and  introduced  his  own  mother,  who  took  in 
the  fact  of  Miss  Andrews's  tall  thinness,  topped  with 
a  wide,  white  hat  and  waving  white  plumes,  and  her 
little  face,  irregular  and  somewhat  gaunt,  but  with  a 
charm  in  the  lips  and  eyes  which  took  the  elder  woman's 
heart  with  pathos.  She  made  talk  with  Mrs.  Andrews, 
who  affected  one  as  having  the  materials  of  social 
severity  in  her  costume  and  manner. 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  believe  I  should  ever  see  you  again," 
the  girl  broke  out  impulsively  upon  Verrian.  "  Oh,  I 
wanted  to  ask  you  so  about  Miss  Shirley.  Have  you 
seen  her  since  you  got  back  ?" 

"  No,"  Verrian  said,  "  I  haven't  seen  her." 

"  Oh,  I  thought  perhaps  you  had.  I've  been  to  the 
9  115 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

address  that  Mrs.  Westangle  gave  me,  but  she  isn't  there 
any  more;  she's  gone  up  into  Harlem  somewhere,  and 
I  haven't  been  able  to  call  again.  Oh,  I  do  feel  so 
anxious  about  her.  Oh,  I  do  hope  she  isn't  ill.  Do 
you  think  she  is  ?" 

"  I  don't  believe  so,"  Verrian  began.  But  she  swept 
over  his  prostrate  remark. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Verrian,  don't  you  think  she's  wonderful  ? 
I've  been  telling  mother  about  it,  and  I  don't  feel  at 
all  the  way  she  does.  Do  you  ?" 

"How  does  she  feel?     I  must  know  that  before  I 


:<  Why,  of  course !  I  hadn't  told  you !  She  thinks 
it  was  a  make-up  between  Miss  Shirley  and  that  Mr. 
Bushwick.  But  I  say  it  couldn't  have  been.  Do  you 
think  it  could?" 

Verrian  found  the  suggestion  so  distasteful,  for  a 
reason  which  he  did  not  quite  seize  himself,  that  he 
answered,  resentfully,  "  It  could  have  been,  but  I  don't 
think  it  was." 

"  I  will  tell  her  what  you  say.  Oh,  may  I  tell  her 
what  you  say?" 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't.  It  isn't  very  im 
portant,  either  way,  is  it  ?" 

"  Oh,  don't  you  think  so  ?  Not  if  it  involved  pre 
tending  what  wasn't  true  ?" 

She  bent  towards  him  in  such  anxious  demand  that 
he  could  not  help  smiling. 

"  The  whole  thing  was  a  pretence,  wasn't  it  ?"  he 
suggested. 

"  Yes,  but  that  would  have  been  a  pretence  that  we 
didn't  know  of." 

"  It  would  be  incriminating  to  that  extent,  certainly," 
Verrian  owned,  ironically.  He  found  the  question  of 
Miss  Shirley's  blame  for  the  collusion  as  distasteful  as 

116 


FENNEL     AND     EUE 

the  supposition  of  the  collusion,  but  there  was  a  fascina 
tion  in  the  innocence  before  him,  and  he  could  not  help 
playing  with  it. 

Sometimes  Miss  Andrews  apparently  knew  that  he 
was  playing  with  her  innocence,  and  sometimes  she  did 
not.  But  in  either  case  she  seemed  to  like  being  his 
jest,  from  which  she  snatched  a  fearful  joy.  She  was 
willing  to  prolong  the  experience,  and  she  drifted  with 
him  from  picture  to  picture,  and  kept  the  talk  recur 
rently  to  Miss  Shirley  and  the  phenomena  of  Seeing 
Ghosts. 

Her  mother  and  Mrs.  Yerrian  evidently  got  on  to 
gether  better  than  either  of  them  at  first  expected. 
When  it  came  to  their  parting,  through  Mrs.  Andrews's 
saying  that  she  must  be  going,  she  shook  hands  with 
Mrs.  Verrian  and  said  to  Philip,  "  I  am  so  glad  to  have 
met  you,  Mr.  Verrian.  Will  you  come  and  see  us  ?" 

"  Yes,  thank  you,"  he  answered,  taking  the  hand  she 
now  offered  him,  and  then  taking  Miss  Andrews's  hand, 
while  the  girl's  eyes  glowed  with  pleasure.  "  I  shall 
be  very  glad." 

"  Oh,  shall  you  ?"  she  said,  with  her  transparent  sin 
cerity.  "  And  you  won't  forget  Thursdays !  But  any 
day  at  five  we  have  tea." 

"  Thank  you,"  Verrian  said.  I  might  forget  the 
Thursdays,  but  I  couldn't  forget  all  the  days  of  the 
week." 

Miss  Andrews  laughed  and  blushed  at  once.  "  Then 
we  shall  expect  you  every  day." 

"  Well,  every  day  but  Thursday,"  he  promised. 

When  the  mother  and  daughter  had  gone  Mrs.  Ver 
rian  said,  "  She  is  a  great  admirer  of  yours,  Philip. 
She's  read  your  story,  and  I  suspect  she  wants  an  op 
portunity  to  talk  with  you  about  it." 

"  You  mean  Mrs.  Andrews  ?" 
117 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

"  Yes.  I  suppose  the  daughter  hasn't  waited  for  an 
opportunity.  The  mother  had  read  that  publisher's 
paragraph  about  your  invalid,  and  wanted  to  know  if 
you  had  ever  heard  from  her  again.  Women  are  per 
sonal  in  their  literary  interests." 

Philip  asked,  in  dismay,  "  You  didn't  give  it  away 
did  you,  mother  ?" 

"  Certainly  not,  my  dear.  You  have  brought  me  up 
too  carefully." 

"  Of  course.     I  didn't  imagine  you  had." 

Then,  as  they  could  not  pretend  to  look  at  the  pict 
ures  any  longer,  they  went  away,  too.  Their  issue  into 
the  open  air  seemed  fraught  with  novel  emotion  for 
Mrs.  Verrian.  "  Well,  now,"  she  said,  "  I  have  seen 
the  woman  I  would  be  willing  my  son  should  marry." 

"  Child,  you  mean,"  Philip  said,  not  pretending  that 
he  did  not  know  she  meant  Miss  Andrews. 

"  That  girl,"  his  mother  returned,  "  is  innocence  it 
self.  Oh,  Philip,  dear,  do  marry  her !" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  If  her  mother  is  behaving  as 
sagely  with  her  as  you  are  with  me  the  chances  are  that 
she  won't  let  me.  Besides,  I  don't  know  that  I  want 
to  marry  quite  so  much  innocence." 

"  She  is  conscience  incarnate,"  his  mother  uttered, 
perf ervidly.  "  You  could  put  your  very  soul  in  her 
keeping." 

"  Then  you  would  be  out  of  a  job,  mother." 

"  Oh,  I  am  not  worthy  of  the  job,  my  dear.  I  have 
always  felt  that.  I  am  too  complex,  and  sometimes  I 
can't  see  the  right  alone,  as  she  could." 

Philip  was  silent  a  moment  while  he  lost  the  personal 
point  of  view.  "  I  suspect  we  don't  see  the  right  when 
we  see  it  alone.  We  ought  to  see  the  wrong,  too." 

"  Ah,  Philip,  don't  let  your  fancy  go  after  that  girl !" 

"  Miss  Andrews  ?    I  thought—" 
118 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

"  Don't  you  be  complex,  my  dear.  You  know  I  mean 
Miss  Shirley.  What  has  become  of  her,  I  wonder.  I 
heard  Miss  Andrews  asking  you." 

"  I  wasn't  able  to  tell  her.  Do  you  want  me  to  try 
telling  you  ?" 

"  I  would  rather  you  never  could." 

Philip  laughed  sardonically.  "  Now,  I  shall  forget 
Thursdays  and  all  the  other  days,  too.  You  are  a  very 
unwise  parent,  mother." 

They  laughed  with  each  other  at  each  other,  and 
treated  her  enthusiasm  for  Miss  Andrews  as  the  joke 
it  partly  was.  Mrs.  Verrian  did  not  follow  him  up 
about  her  idol,  and  a  week  or  so  later  she  was  able  to 
affect  a  decent  surprise  when  he  came  in  at  the  end  of 
an  afternoon  and  declined  the  cup  of  tea  she  proposed 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  been  taking  a  cup  of  tea  with, 
the  Andrewses.  "  You  have  really  been  there  ?" 

"  Didn't  you  expect  me  to  keep  my  promise  ?" 

"  But  I  was  afraid  I  had  put  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
way." 

"  Oh,  I  found  I  could  turn  the  consciousness  you 
created  in  me  into  literary  material,  and  so  I  was  rather 
eager  to  go.  I  have  got  a  point  for  my  new  story  out 
of  it.  I  shall  have  my  fellow  suffer  all  I  didn't  suffer 
in  meeting  the  girl  he  knows  his  mother  wants  him  to 
marry.  I  got  on  very  well  with  those  ladies.  Mrs. 
Andrews  is  the  mother  of  innocence,  but  she  isn't  in 
nocence.  She  managed  to  talk  of  my  story  without 
asking  about  the  person  who  wanted  to  anticipate  the 
conclusion.  That  was  what  you  call  complex.  She  was 
insincere;  it  was  the  only  thing  she  wanted  to  talk 
about." 

"  I  don't  believe  it,  Philip.  But  what  did  Miss 
Andrews  talk  about  ?" 

"  Well,  she  is  rather  an  optimistic  conscience.  She 
119 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

talked  about  books  and  plays  that  some  people  do  not 
think  are  quite  proper.  I  have  a  notion  that,  where  the 
point  involved  isn't  a  fact  of  her  own  experience,  she 
is  not  very  severe  about  it.  You  think  that  would  be 
quite  safe  for  me  ?" 

"  Philip,  I  don't  like  your  making  fun  of  her !" 

"  Oh,  she  wasn't  insipid ;  she  was  only  limpid.  I 
really  like  her,  and,  as  for  reverencing  her,  of  course  I 
feel  that  in  a  way  she  is  sacred."  He  added,  after  a 
breath,  "  Too  sacred.  We  none  of  us  can  expect  to 
marry  Eve  before  the  Fall  now;  perhaps  we  have  got 
over  wanting  to." 

"  You  are  very  perverse,  my  dear.  But  you  will  get 
over  that." 

"  Don't  take  away  my  last  defence,  mother." 

Verrian  began  to  go  rather  regularly  to  the  Andrews 
house,  or,  at  least,  he  was  accused  of  doing  it  by  Miss 
Macroyd  when,  very  irregularly,  he  went  one  day  to 
see  her.  "  How  did  you  know  it  ?"  he  asked. 

"  I  didn't  say  I  knew  it.  I  only  wished  to  know  it. 
Now  I  am  satisfied.  I  met  another  friend  of  yours 
on  Sunday."  She  paused  for  him  to  ask  who;  but 
he  did  not  ask.  "  I  see  you  are  dying  to  know  what 
friend :  Mr.  Bushwick." 

"  Oh,  lie's  a  good-fellow.  I  wonder  I  don't  run  across 
him." 

"  Perhaps  that's  because  you  never  call  on  Miss  Shir 
ley."  Miss  Macroyd  waited  for  this  to  take  effect,  but 
he  kept  a  glacial  surface  towards  her,  and  she  went  on : 
"  They  were  walking  together  in  the  park  at  noon.  I 
suppose  they  had  been  to  church  together." 

Verrian  manifested  no  more  than  a  polite  interest  in 
the  fact.  He  managed  so  well  that  he  confirmed  Miss 
Macroyd  in  a  tacit  conjecture.  She  went  on:  "Miss 
Shirley  was  looking  quite  blooming — for  her.  But  so 

120 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

was  he,  for  that  matter.  Why  don't  you  ask  if  they  in 
quired  for  you?" 

"  I  thought  you  would  tell  me  without." 

"  I  will  tell  you  if  he  did.  He  was  very  cordial  in 
his  inquiries ;  and  I  had  to  pretend,  to  gratify  him,  that 
you  were  very  well.  I  implied  that  you  came  here  every 
Tuesday,  but  your  Thursdays  were  dedicated  to  Miss 
Andrews." 

"  You  are  a  clever  woman,  Miss  Macroyd.  I  should 
never  have  thought  of  so  much  to  say  on  such  an  un 
interesting  subject.  And  Miss  Shirley  showed  no  curi 
osity?" 

"  Ah,  she  is  a  clever  woman,  too.  She  showed  the 
prettiest  kind  of  curiosity — so  perfectly  managed.  She 
has  a  studio — I  don't  know  just  how  she  puts  it  to  use 
— with  a  painter  girl  in  one  of  those  studio  apartment 
houses  on  the  West  Side :  The  Veronese,  I  believe.  You 
must  go  and  see  her;  I'll  let  you  have  next  Tuesday 
off ;  Tuesday's  her  day,  too." 

"  You  are  generosity  itself,  Miss  Macroyd." 

"  Yes,  there's  nothing  mean  about  me,"  she  returned, 
in  slang  rather  older  than  she  ordinarily  used.  "  If 
you're  not  here  next  Tuesday  I  shall  know  where  you 
are." 

"  Then  I  must  take  a  good  many  Tuesdays  off,  un 
less  I  want  to  give  myself  away." 

"  Oh,  don't  do  that,  Mr.  Verrian!  Please!  Or  else 
I  can't  let  you  have  any  Tuesday  off." 


XXI 

UPON  the  whole,  Verrian  thought  he  would  go  to  see 
Miss  Shirley  the  next  Tuesday,  but  he  did  not  say  so 
to  Miss  Macroyd.  ^N"ow  that  he  knew  where  the  girl 
was,  all  the  peculiar  interest  she  had  inspired  in  him 
renewed  itself.  It  was  so  vivid  that  he  could  not  pay 
his  usual  Thursday  call  at  Miss  Andrews's,  and  it  filled 
his  mind  to  the  exclusion  of  the  new  story  he  had  begun 
to  write.  He  loafed  his  mornings  away  at  his  club,  and 
he  lunched  there,  leaving  his  mother  to  lunch  alone, 
and  was  dreamily  preoccupied  in  the  evenings  which 
he  spent  at  home,  sitting  at  his  desk,  with  the  paper 
before  him,  unable  to  coax  the  thoughts  from  his  brain 
to  its  alluring  blank,  but  restive  under  any  attempts  of 
hers  to  talk  with  him. 

In  his  desperation  he  would  have  gone  to  the  theatre, 
but  the  fact  that  the  ass  who  rightfully  called  him 
self  Verrian  was  playing  at  one  of  them  blocked  his 
way,  through  his  indignation,  to  all  of  them.  By  Sat 
urday  afternoon  the  tedious  time  had  to  be  done  some 
thing  with,  and  he  decided  to  go  and  see  what  the  ass 
was  like. 

He  went  early,  and  found  himself  in  the  end  seat  of 
a  long  row  of  many  rows  of  women,  who  were  prolong 
ing  the  time  of  keeping  their  hats  on  till  custom  obliged 
them  to  take  them  off.  He  gave  so  much  notice  to  the 
woman  next  him  as  to  see  that  she  was  deeply  veiled  as 
well  as  widely  hatted,  and  then  he  lapsed  into  a  dreary 
muse,  which  was  broken  by  the  first  strains  of  the  over- 

122 


FENNEL     AND     RUE 

ture.  Then  he  diverted  himself  by  looking  round  at 
all  those  ranks  of  women  lifting  their  arms  to  take  out 
their  hat-pins  and  dropping  them  to  pin  their  hats  to 
the  seat-backs  in  front  of  them,  or  to  secure  them  some 
how  in  their  laps.  Upon  the  whole,  he  thought  the 
manoeuvre  graceful  and  pleasing;  he  imagined  a  con 
solation  in  it  for  the  women,  who,  if  they  were  forced 
by  public  opinion  to  put  off  their  charming  hats,  would 
know  how  charmingly  they  did  it.  Each  turned  a  lit 
tle,  either  her  body  or  her  head,  and  looked  in  any  case 
out  of  the  corner  of  her  eyes;  and  he  was  phrasing  it 
all  for  a  scene  in  his  story,  when  he  looked  round  at 
his  neighbor  to  see  how  she  had  managed,  or  was 
managing,  with  her  veil.  At  the  same  moment  she 
looked  at  him,  and  their  eyes  met. 

"Jfr.Vemanl" 

"Miss  Shirley !" 

The  stress  of  their  voices  fell  upon  different  parts 
of  the  sentences  they  uttered,  but  did  not  commit  either 
of  them  to  a  special  role. 

"  How  very  strange  we  should  meet  here !"  she  said, 
with  pleasure  in  her  voice.  "  Do  you  know,  I  have  been 
wanting  to  come  all  winter  to  see  this  man,  on  account 
of  his  name  ?  And  to  think  that  I  should  meet  the  other 
Mr.  Verrian  as  soon  as  I  yielded  to  the  temptation.'' 

"  I  have  just  yielded  myself/'  Verrian  said.  "  I 
hope  you  don't  feel  punished  for  yielding." 

"  Oh,  dear,  no !    It  seems  a  reward." 

She  did  not  say  why  it  seemed  so,  and  he  suggested, 
"  The  privilege  of  comparing  the  histrionic  and  the  lit 
erary  Verrian?" 

"  Could  there  be  any  comparison  ?"  she  came  back, 

gayiy. 

"  I  don't  know.  I  haven't  seen  the  histrionic  Verrian 
yet." 

123 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

They  were  laughing  when  the  curtain  rose,  and  the 
histrionic  Verrian  had  his  innings  for  a  long,  long  first 
act.  When  the  curtain  fell  she  turned  to  the  literary 
Verrian  and  said,  "Well?" 

"  He  lasted  a  good  while,"  Verrian  returned. 

"  Yes.  Didn't  he  ?"  She  looked  at  the  little  watch 
in  her  wristlet.  "  A  whole  hour !  Do  you  know,  Mr. 
Verrian,  I  am  going  to  seem  very  rude.  I  am  going 
to  leave  you  to  settle  this  question  of  superiority;  I 
know  you'll  be  impartial.  I  have  an  appointment — 
with  the  dressmaker,  to  be  specific — at  half-past  four, 
and  it's  half-past  three  now,  and  I  couldn't  well  leave 
in  the  middle  of  the  next  act.  So  I  will  say  good-bye 
now — " 

"  Don't!"  he  entreated.  "  I  couldn't  bear  to  be  left 
alone  with  this  dreadful  double  of  mine.  Let  me  go 
out  with  you." 

"  Can  I  accept  such  self-sacrifice?    Well!" 

She  had  put  on  her  hat  and  risen,  and  he  now  stepped 
out  of  his  place  to  let  her  pass  and  then  followed  her. 
At  the  street  entrance  he  suggested,  "  A  hansom,  or  a 
simple  trolley  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  murmured,  meditatively,  looking 
up  the  street  as  if  that  would  settle  it.  "  If  it's  only 
half-past  three  now,  I  should  have  time  to  get  home 
more  naturally." 

"  Oh !    And  will  you  let  me  walk  with  you  ?" 

"  Why,  if  you're  going  that  way." 

"  I  will  say  when  I  know  which  way  it  is." 

They  started  on  their  walk  so  blithely  that  they  did 
not  sadden  in  the  retrospect  of  their  joint  experiences  at 
Mrs.  Westangle's.  By  the  time  they  reached  the  park 
gate  at  Columbus  Circle  they  had  come  so  dictinctly 
to  the  end  of  their  retrospect  that  she  made  an  offer  of 
letting  him  leave  her,  a  very  tacit  offer,  but  unmistaka- 

124 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

ble,  if  he  chose  to  take  it.  He  interpreted  her  hesita 
tion  as  he  chose.  "  No,"  he  said,  "  it  won't  be  any 
longer  if  we  go  up  through  the  park." 

She  drew  in  her  breath  softly,  smoothing  down  her 
muff  with  her  right  hand  while  she  kept  her  left  in  it. 
"  And  it  will  certainly  be  pleasanter."  When  they 
were  well  up  the  path,  in  that  part  of  it  where  it  de 
flects  from  the  drive  without  approaching  the  street  too 
closely,  and  achieves  something  of  seclusion,  she  said: 
"  Your  speaking  of  him  just  now  makes  me  want  to 
tell  you  something,  Mr.  Verrian.  You  would  hear 
of  it  very  soon,  anyway,  and  I  feel  that  it  is  always  best 
to  be  very  frank  with  you;  but  you'll  regard  it  as  a 
secret  till  it  comes  out." 

The  currents  that  had  been  playing  so  warmly  in 
and  out  of  Verrian's  heart  turned  suddenly  cold.  He 
said,  with  joyless  mocking,  "  You  know,  I'm  used  to 
keeping  your  secrets.  I  shall  feel  honored,  I'm  sure, 
if  you  trust  me  with  another." 

"  Yes,"  she  returned,  pathetically,  "  you  have  always 
been  faithful — even  in  your  wounds."  It  was  their  joint 
tribute  to  the  painful  past,  and  they  had  paid  no  other. 
She  was  looking  away  from  him,  but  he  knew  she  was 
aware  of  his  hanging  his  head.  "  That's  all  over  now," 
she  uttered,  passionately.  "  What  I  wanted  to  say — to 
tell  you — is  that  I  am  engaged  to  Mr.  Bushwick." 

He  could  have  answered  that  she  had  no  need  to  tell 
him.  The  cold  currents  in  and  out  of  his  heart  stiffened 
frozenly  and  ceased  to  flow;  his  heart  itself  stood  still 
for  an  eternal  instant.  It  was  in  this  instant  that  he 
said,  "  He  is  a  fine  fellow."  Afterwards,  amid  the 
wild  bounding  of  his  recovered  pulse,  he  could  add, 
"  I  congratulate  him ;  I  congratulate  you  both." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said.  "  No  one  knows  as  I  do 
how  good  he  is — has  been,  all  through."  Probably  she 

125 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

had  not  meant  to  convey  any  reproach  to  Verrian  by 
Bushwick's  praise,  but  he  felt  reproach  in  it.  "  It — 
only  happened  last  week.  You  do  wish  me  happy,  don't 
you  ?  ~No  one  knows  what  a  winter  I  have  had  till  now. 
Everything  seeming  to  fail — " 

She  choked,  and  did  not  say  more.  He  said,  aimless 
ly,  "  I  am  sorry — " 

"  Let  me  sit  down  a  moment/'  she  begged.  And  she 
dropped  upon  the  bench  at  which  she  faltered,  and 
rested  there,  as  if  from  the  exhaustion  of  running. 
When  she  could  get  her  breath  she  began  again :  "  There 
is  something  else  I  want  to  tell  you." 

She  stopped.    And  he  asked,  to  prompt  her,  "  Yes  ?" 

"  Thank  you,"  she  answered,  piteously.  And  she 
added,  with  superficial  inconsequence,  "  I  shall  always 
think  you  were  very  cruel." 

He  did  not  pretend  not  to  know  what  she  meant,  and 
he  said,  "  I  shall  always  think  so,  too.  I  tried  to  re 
venge  myself  for  the  hurt  your  harmless  hoax  did  my 
vanity.  Of  course,  I  made  believe  at  the  time  that  I 
was  doing  an  act  of  justice,  but  I  never  was  able  to 
brave  it  out  afterwards." 

"  But  you  were — you  were  doing  an  act  of  justice. 
I  deserved  what  you  said,  but  I  didn't  deserve  what  has 
followed.  I  meant  no  harm — it  was  a  silly  prank,  and 
I  have  suffered  for  it  as  if  it  were  a  crime,  and  the 
consequences  are  not  ended  yet.  I  should  think  that,  if 
there  is  a  moral  government  of  the  universe,  the  Judge 
of  all  the  earth  would  know  when  to  hold  His  hand. 
And  now  the  worst  of  it  is  to  come  yet."  She  caught 
Verrian's  arm,  as  if  for  help. 

"  Don't — don't!"  he  besought  her.  "  What  will  peo 
ple  think?" 

"  Yes,  yes !"  she  owned,  releasing  him  and  withdraw 
ing  to  the  other  end  of  the  seat. 

126 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

"  But  it  almost  drives  me  wild.  .  What  shall  I  do  ? 
You  ought  to  know.  It  is  your  fault.  You  have 
frightened  me  out  of  daring  to  tell  the  truth." 

Had  he,  indeed,  done  that?  Verrian  asked  himself, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  done  something  like  it. 
If  it  was  so,  he  must  help  her  over  her  fear  now.  He 
answered,  bluntly,  harshly :  "  You  must  tell  him  all 
about  it—  " 

"  But  if  he  won't  believe  me  ?  Do  you  think  he  will 
believe  me  ?  Would  you  believe  me  ?" 

"  You  have  nothing  to  do  with  that.  There  is  nothing 
for  you  but  to  tell  him  the  whole  story.  You  mustn't 
share  such  a  secret  with  any  one  but  your  husband. 
When  you  tell  him  it  will  cease  to  be  my  secret." 

"  Yes,  yes." 

"  Well,  then,  you  must  tell  him,  unless — " 

"  Yes,"  she  prompted. 

Then  they  were  both  silent,  looking  intensely  into 
each  other's  eyes.  In  that  moment  all  else  of  life 
seemed  to  melt  and  swim  away  from  Verrian  and  leave 
him  stranded  upon  an  awful  eminence  confronting 
her. 

"  Hello,  hello !"  a  gay  voice  called,  as  if  calling  to 
them  both.  "  What  are  you  two  conspiring  ?"  Bush- 
wick,  as  suddenly  as  if  he  had  fallen  from  the  sky  or 
started  up  from  the  earth,  stood  before  them,  and  gave 
a  hand  to  each — his  right  to  Verrian,  his  left  to  Miss 
Shirley.  "  How  are  you,  Verrian  ?  How  are  you,  Miss 
Shirley  ?"  He  mocked  her  in  the  formality  of  his  ad 
dress.  "  I've  been  shadowing  you  ever  since  you  came 
into  the  park,  but  I  thought  I  wouldn't  interrupt  till 
you  seemed  to  have  got  through  your  conversation.  May 
I  ask  what  it  was  all  about  ?  It  seemed  very  absorbing, 
from  a  respectful  distance." 

"  Very  absorbing,  indeed,"  Miss  Shirley  said,  making 
127 


FENNEL     AND     KUE 

room  for  him  between  them.  "  Sit  down  and  let  me  tell 
you.  You're  to  be  a  partner  in  the  secret." 

"  Silent  partner/'  Bushwick  suggested. 

"  I  hope  you'll  always  be  silent/'  the  girl  shared  in 
his  drolling.  She  began  and  told  the  whole  story  to 
the  last  detail,  sparing  neither  herself  nor  Verrian, 
who  listened  as  if  he  were  some  one  else  not  concerned, 
and  kept  saying  to  himself,  "  What  courage !"  Bush- 
wick  listened  as  mutely,  with  a  face  that,  to  Verrian's 
eye,  seemed  to  harden  from  its  light  jocosity  into  a 
severity  he  had  not  seen  in  it  before.  "  It  was  some 
thing,"  she  ended  towards  Bushwick,  with  a  catch  in  her 
breath,  "  that  you  had  to  know." 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  tonelessly. 

"  And  now  —  she  attempted  a  little  forlorn  play 
fulness  — "  don't  you  think  he  gave  me  what  I  de 
served  ?" 

Bushwick  rose  up  and  took  her  hand  under  his  arm, 
keeping  his  left  hand  upon  hers. 

"He!    Who?" 

"  Mr.  Verrian." 

"  I  don't  know  any  Mr.  Verrian.  Come,  you'll  take 
cold  here." 

He  turned  his  back  on  Verrian,  who  fancied  a  tremor 
in  her  hat,  as  if  she  would  look  round  at  him ;  but  then, 
as  if  she  divined  Bushwick's  intention,  she  did  not  look 
round,  and  together  they  left  him. 

It  was  days  before  Verrian  could  confess  himself 
of  the  fact  to  his  mother,  who  listened  with  the  justice 
instinctive  in  her.  She  still  had  not  spoken  when  he 
ended,  and  he  said,  "  I  have  thought  it  all  over,  and 
I  feel  that  he  did  right.  He  did  the  only  thing  that 
a  man  in  love  with  her  could  do.  And  I  don't  wonder 
he's  in  love  with  her.  Yes  " — he  stayed  his  mother, 
imperatively  — "  and  such  a  man  as  he,  though  he 

128 


FENNEL     AND     KITE 

ground  me  in  the  dirt  and  stamped  on  me,  I  will  say 
it,  is  worthy  of  any  woman.  He  can  believe  in  a  wom 
an,  and  that's  the  first  thing  that's  needed  to  make  a 
woman  like  her,  true.  I  don't  envy  his  job."  He 
was  speaking  self-contradictorily,  irrelevantly,  illogical- 
ly,  as  a  man  thinks.  He  went  on  in  that  way,  getting 
himself  all  out.  "  She  isn't  single-hearted,  but  she's 
faithful.  She'll  never  betray  him — now.  She's  never 
given  him  any  reason  to  distrust  her.  She's  the  kind 
that  can  keep  on  straight  with  any  one  she's  begun 
straight  with.  She  told  him  all  that  before  me  be 
cause  she  wanted  me  to  know — to  realize — that  she  had 
told  him.  It  took  courage." 

Mrs.  Verrian  had  thought  of  generalizing,  but  she 
seized  a  single  point.  "  Perhaps  not  so  much  courage 
as  you  think.  You  mustn't  let  such  bravado  impose 
upon  you,  Philip.  I've  no  doubt  she  knew  her 
ground." 

"  She  took  the  chance  of  his  casting  her  off." 

"  She  knew  he  wouldn't.  She  knew  him,  and  she 
knew  you.  She  knew  that  if  he  cast  her  off — " 

"  Mother !    Don't  say  it !    I  can't  bear  it !" 

His  mother  did  not  say  it,  or  anything  more,  then. 
Late  at  night  she  came  to  him.  "  Are  you  asleep, 
Philip?" 

"Asleep?    IT 

"  I  didn't  suppose  you  were.  But  I  have  had  a  note 
to-day  which  I  must  answer.  Mrs.  Andrews  has  asked 
us  to  dinner  on  Saturday.  Philip,  if  you  could  see 
that  sweet  girl  as  I  do,  in  all  her  goodness  and  sin 
cerity — " 

"  I  think  I  do,  mother.  And  I  wouldn't  be  guilty 
of  her  unhappiness  for  the  world.  You  must  decline." 

"  Well,  perhaps  you  are  right."    Mrs.  Verrian  went 
129 


FENNEL  AND  RUE 

away,  softly  sighing.  As  she  sealed  her  reply  to  Mrs. 
Andrews,  she  sighed  again,  and  made  the  reflection 
which  a  mother  seldom  makes  with  regard  to  her  son, 
before  his  marriage,  that  men  do  not  love  women  for 
their  goodness. 


THE    END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

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